the artist Delfine Ferré tells her story

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While her exhibition, “L’effeuillantine”, which took place at the Petit Cormier, in Montigny-sur-Loing (Seine-et-Marne) has just ended, Delfine Ferré is already preparing the next event.

A visual arts teacher for 30 years and an artist, Delfine settled down in Villiers-sous-Grez to fill her house with gourds, collages, chiselled drawings and old dictionaries by Pierre Larousse!

“To establish a dialogue, through the image”, is the primary aim of Delfine, who, when it comes to defining himself as an artist, sees himself rather as a touch-and-go. -everything, but certainly not someone who fits into a box!

Technology comes second. The meaning, the fact of telling stories, questioning the universe and oneself, challenges him.

She finds, through Tyvek, this super light synthetic material invented in the 1960s, an innovative basis for her work. Although fragile in appearance, the material is nonetheless very resistant, which is an advantage when the cutting it makes resembles lace!

» My mother put scissors in my hands; I was two and a half years old, she confides. I was cutting, sitting on little steps… I never stopped.”

New techniques

Could the Japanese flower wallpaper in the family home be the origin of his passion? Around 10-11 years old, she was already making compositions by cutting out her father’s botanical catalogs. Later, as a teenager, she hung different shapes in various colors in her room: » My teacher asked me to do just one, so I had to do fifty! »

Subsequently, she trained in other creative processes, but her love for drawing, collage and cutting never left her.

Even if she hesitated for a long time to get started so as not to tread on the toes of more well-known artists, the time was taken advantage of to test new techniques.

Creation is for me a space of freedom

The themes, for their part, are recurring. The relationship with nature, birth, the woman’s body, the relationship between mother and child, history, memory are her sources of inspiration.

» Creation for me is a space of freedom. I often say that I do lace therapy,” a method that allows her to return to her bubble, a place of concentration where she finds her vital space.

His intuitive work takes him to unknown spheres. She never knows in advance what the outcome will be. » I’m not into repeating a recipe. I know how to do that. But no, I do something else.”

Pieces started ten years ago can be resumed today. Time does its work and brings new ideas. Today, she is going through a collection of around forty Pierre Larousse dictionaries where she finds material for her work which will soon be presented at the AMI Atelier Musée de l’Imprimerie, in Malesherbes, for an exhibition which will take place on a year. In particular, you will find illustrations, made from dictionaries from several editions, of the 26 initials of the alphabet.

To do thisDelfine has looked at nearly 20,000 pages of the Grand Dictionnaire ! For a year, she had fun reading, discovering new words and images…

His greatest work lies in 60 meters of elaborate undulations for the Museum of French Emigration in Canada, a titanic task which took him 2 years!

Another exhibition will be held at the beginning of 2025, in Lieusaint, with the Maison des Cultures et des Arts and which will last until March. Internships are also planned for schools and the public.

Very rich news (like his work)! Delfine never ceases to surprise us…

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