Artist statement
About
Delphine Perrot's practice operates at the intersection of drawing, ink and painting. Through sketchbooks, works on paper, paintings and graphic installations, she explores the relationships between body, memory and landscape.
Gesture forms the starting point of her work. Informed by dance, walking and travel, she seeks to translate the relationship between bodily movement and the traces it leaves in space. The line becomes an extension of physical energy, a living form of writing capable of revealing rhythms, tensions and moments of stillness. For Perrot, drawing is less a tool of representation than a way of inhabiting the world.
“Between drawing and dance, I seek a language of rhythm.”
This approach resonates with the philosophy of Maurice Merleau-Ponty, for whom perception is not simply observation but an embodied experience. Perrot considers drawing as a form of attentiveness to the world, where gaze, body and landscape participate in the same sensory reality. Her works are less concerned with depicting a place than with capturing its variations, tensions and transformations.
Her visual language is grounded in an economy of means, where the expressive force of the gesture engages in dialogue with emptiness. The contrast between black and white structures this field of inquiry: black as density and concentration; white as an active reserve, a space of silence and openness.
Experiences developed in Brazil through street theatre, collective care practices and social psychiatry, together with the work of Lygia Clark, Cynthia Fleury and Vitor Pordeus, have shaped her understanding of art as a space for transformation and exchange. The artwork becomes a site where perception, memory and imagination can meet.
Through her work, Delphine Perrot seeks less to represent a landscape than to reveal its intensity. Each piece retains the trace of a relationship between a place, a gaze and a lived moment.
Biography
Born in France in 1981, Delphine Perrot lives and works in Marseille.
A graduate of École Duperré and ENSAAMA Olivier de Serres in Paris, she has developed for over fifteen years a multidisciplinary practice spanning drawing, ink, painting and installation.
Her work has been exhibited in France and internationally, notably in London, Rio de Janeiro and Buenos Aires. She has also collaborated with a range of cultural institutions, including the Design Museum London, the Institute of Contemporary Arts (ICA) and Studio Myerscough.
Her research has led her to develop artistic projects in Brazil and Argentina, exploring the intersections of creation, movement, place and collective practices. These experiences have informed a transdisciplinary approach that today brings together artistic practice, education and creative direction.
Alongside her work as an artist, Delphine Perrot teaches drawing, design and creative practices in a variety of academic and cultural contexts. Her work is regularly presented through exhibitions, residencies and research-based projects in France and abroad.
Information
Lives and works in Marseille.
Born in 1981 in Marseille, France.
+33 6 18 67 23 60
contact@delphineperrot.comTimeline
- 2026Attune Residency, Ireland
- 2024Solo exhibition, Paris
- 2023The Drawing Room, London
- 2018Osmosis series, London
- 1981Born in Marseille
Education
At the crossroads of art, design and education.
- 2020Master's Degree in Art Education (MEEF) — Aix-Marseille University
- 2013–2014 — Visual Arts Program, Escola de Artes Visuais (EAV), Parque Lage, Rio de Janeiro
- 2003–2005 — Master's Degree in Visual Communication (DSAA), ENSAAMA Olivier de Serres, Paris
- 2001–2003 — Higher National Diploma in Visual Communication, École Duperré, Paris
Selected historical projects
Nothing Works
2008
Installation presented at Shoreditch Town Hall during the London Design Festival, within the building's underground spaces.
Affluenza
2009
Participatory installation exploring the opinions, reflections and viewpoints contributed by visitors.
Guerrilla Projections
2011
Collaboration with Dave Lynch: projections and visual interventions in public spaces across central London.
Ode to Reality
2013
Installation and performance developed in Rio de Janeiro from a series of interviews, drawing inspiration from cinéma vérité.