Delphine Lebourgeois is a French artist based in London who studied Fine Art at École des Beaux Arts de Lyon and completed her Master’s at Central Saint Martins in London. Her work explores, via precise scenarios, the realm of human psychology whilst questioning illustrative and fine art traditions. She is interested in popular culture, fairy tales, and storytelling. Her female characters, often rebellious and portrayed marching as one, are together guardians of our individual freedom and an echo to the liberation of speech. Her work has been featured in The Guardian, EA Games, Vogue, Stylist, and Soho House. @delphinelebourgeois
Where were you born and raised? How did it influence your art and your thinking about the world? I was born in the Massif Central, in a rural part of France with very little access to art. Nature was very important as I grew up, and I spent entire summers running the countryside. Boredom and the need for escapism was probably the first motor to creativity. I read books. Lots of books which shaped my love for story telling.
Was there a moment when you realised making art wasn’t just something you loved—but what you wanted to do with your life? For you, what is the importance of the arts? I don’t think this was a conscious decision. It’s just something I need to do in order to stay sane! I was listening to Esther Perel (the psychotherapist) recently, and she was talking about sex being a place you go to, rather than a thing you do. I think art is similar. It’s a place to explore things you wouldn’t explore in the day light. I don’t know how to do anything else and I am probably unemployable otherwise. Art opens minds, entertains, thought provokes, educates, offers beauty…
What does your typical day in the studio look like? What’s on your table? What you’re reaching for most often? Being an artist feels like a one-man-band kind of job. Often people think of me drawing away all day (and this can happen), but the logistics of studio management takes the larger share of my time!
In terms of materials and tools, I’m a sucker for paper so there’s a lot of it around (mostly hand made Asian papers) and I have a soft spot for Sennelier inks. These are made with shellac and dry waterproof so you can layer them and play with transparencies. The colours are beautifully vibrant too!
You recently launched a new body of work titled Play, currently on show in London. What sparked this series, and what ideas were you exploring through it? I started this new series a few months back with the idea of doing something fun. It had to be playful with a little mischief. It had to talk about pleasure, women and art. It also had to mix different visual influences. Pop culture meets ultra classical to create little visual stories about freedom and emancipation.
You often create female characters that march, rebel, and protect. What kind of emotional or intellectual response do you hope viewers experience when they encounter these works? Amusement, serenity. I like when people recognise something of their story too. I work with symbols, so people often make their own mind about what they see. I like to hear people’s interpretation of the works.
Which artists would you like to meet? I’m quite awkward socially, so any talkative artist would be great!
Do you draw inspiration from music, art, or other disciplines? Literature, movies, theatre
A great thing about living in London is…the abundance of the above
Can you describe a project that challenged you creatively or emotionally—and how you worked through it? A couple of years ago I was asked to take part in Girls like Us a project organised by Aunt Joy gallery where artists and young girls aged 8-14 create a collaborative artwork together.
The project is amazing! It aims at boosting confidence in young girls at an age where such confidence decreases.
Each selected artwork created by the girls is then given to one of the artists of the gallery so they can add their own touch. I chose a drawing by Amy who was 12 at the time. She had drawn a pink-haired character with a cat, and I was attracted by the animé style of the image and its bold colours.
This type of collaborative artwork often involves a transformation, so I was conscious that whatever I chose to do might displease Amy, which would have been the very opposite of the intention. Being a mum myself, I felt very protective. I wanted to do justice to her beautiful drawing and do something fun too.
In the end, I made a collage from her drawing so the aesthetic was untouched. I think Amy liked it. She wrote me a very sweet note.
Looking back on your education, were there any mentors who influenced the way you think about your practice today? Bernard Frize was my tutor at the École de Beaux Arts de Lyon, and his practice was conceptual. There was a great emphasis on the analysis of works…I remember walking on a MA’s crit as a first year and one of the students had placed a little heap of sugar on the floor and was discussing the placement according to the tiling etc... this utterly alienated me, I drew fairies for three months in rebellion!
In the end though, I am grateful for Frize's tuition, he taught me precision and discipline. Each element used must be justified and accurate, with the further benefit of forcing one to be economical as well.
Your relationship to nature comes through your art. How does being in nature inspire your process? Nature was very much part of my upbringing. I spent most of my teenage years exploring the surroundings of my grand-parents house in rural Auvergne.
A few years ago, I did an installation where I placed large cardboard cutouts of my Amazonians in a remote forest in France. The installation was hidden, away from touristic trails and not signed posted. I wanted passers by to see it by chance rather than people searching for it.
The cut outs were made from recycled cardboard so extremely fragile and prone to quick degradation. The project had to be ecological and ephemeral.
Art about nature or in nature holds a particular place for me. I remember loving “My Back to Nature” the exhibition by George Shaw at the National Gallery in London, and more recently got the same awe whilst visiting “Light into Life” by Mark Quinn at Kew Gardens.
Sustainability is important but paradoxically beauty is everywhere… in decay, in a plastic bag stuck in a tree, even in garbage. This is why I liked George Shaw’s exhibition so much. He painted woodlands with traces that humans have left behind. Dirty mattresses, soiled duvets hanging from branches. His mastery as a painter made the objects nearly sacred. I don’t think art should be sanitised.
AI is becoming more entwined with the way we see the world, creativity, art, our ideas of beauty and the way we communicate with each other and our imaginations. As an artist working with handmade materials and storytelling, what are your thoughts on its rise? From a purely aesthetic point of view, I find the monstrosity of AI images compelling in themselves… in a Frankenstein's creation kind of way. Pulp recently released their new single Spike Island and Jarvis Cocker used AI to animate old photos to create the video. The use of this nascent intelligence results in imagery that feels experimental, playful and, paradoxically hand-made! It has the charm of a fledgeling technology, as did the early b&w films. Cocker is obviously doubtful about AI and is parodying it, so human intelligence is very much behind the process.
I think human experience is irreplaceable, and unless we want to end up each in a pod behind a screen regurgitating old ideas and theories (as EM Foster depicts with such vision in The Machine Stops, human art, original ideas and hand made creative works are crucial.
Exploring ideas, art, and the creative process connects me to…other places and worlds.
