Virginie Schroeder’s pop art inspired portraits combine abstraction and realism to offer us a new way of looking at the world’s most iconic faces.
In a precise and elaborate exploration of geometry, colour and texture, Schroeder deconstructs familiar features and recreates them as a series of hand-painted linear strokes which seem to float independently on the canvas; but when viewed from a distance, each apparently abstract composition resolves into a beautiful and accurate likeness of its subject. Schroeder’s highly skilled and meticulous process is complemented by her playful approach. Using palette knives and syringes, she applies and reworks multiple layers of oil paints often in bright, fluorescent colours to build her subjects line by vibrant line. As the viewer moves around the canvas, the image seems to shift and change, and this dynamic quality lends it unique depth and character.
Born in France, Schroeder now lives and works in Quebec. Her love of art was inspired by her father, a sculptor and cabinetmaker who would prepare his own paints and varnishes and lovingly create every piece from start to finish completely by hand. She inherited his passion for realising a personal artistic vision with her own hands and describes her work as sculpture on canvas. Studying Fine Art at the Academy of Painting in Metz, Lorraine, she soon departed from the traditional tenets of painting, experimenting with plaster, silicone, resin and more. Her recent mixed media works incorporate some of these elements and allow her to shape her lines to realise the smallest subtlety of detail.
Her career as an artist began in 2009 when she relocated to Canada. Since then, Schroeder has built up an impressive international collector base and her work has been exhibited all over the world.
“Each work is to be read through the lines and each line is an emotion, a way of telling the story like the lines of the hand. I invite you to take a physical and mental journey and to discover it from all angles.”
