Prendre le large, 2023

Wabé  

French artist, Wabé was born in Marseilles in 1961. Even if her father was a docker, that did not stop her from practicing sculpture in her free time. Her mother, on the other hand, was a musician. growing up in an environment where art played a main role, Wabé discovered papier-mache at the age of 11. Her passion for this material has not fade since then, she even made her own brand. After stopping her Geman courses, she moved to Paris to study art. Once she graduated from the School of Fine Arts of Paris in 1989 she devoted herself full time to her passion.

Her colorful and vivid sculptures in papier-mache, represent animals and human beings in an artistic research that follows the same line as that of Niki de Saint Phalle. The artist does not represent reality, but a dream world, an imaginary world inhabited by creatures with exorbitant eyes.

"It is not the materials used that create art, but the way we look at it. Hours of hard work cannot be turned into a precious masterpiece, even if it is made of gold. And yet a medium as humble as paper; papier mâché sets free Wabé’s instinctive talent to create rich, dreamlike landscapes teeming with vitality and hidden depths. Wabé is neither careful nor respectful of norms and natural order. She steps joyfully into unchartered territories of the contemporary art world. She leads us to places where children dream and play amongst animals, to the corners of our imagination."
René TURC, "Wabé, Bifaces et autres merveilles", Edition Grandir, 2014.

Wabé's work has been particularly exhibited in France and Switzeland.