The Artist
Valérie Simoncelli graduated from Lyon’s architecture school. She worked for 15 years for various architecture and urbanism firms, in France and abroad. It was during a 2 years expatriation in Singapore that she reconnected with drawing; she was particularly inspired by the urban landscape, and also intrigued by the Japanese culture.
Once back in Lyon, she kept drawing and used this practice in two different manners. First, she offers hand drawing services to help communicate on different architectural and urban projects. On the other hand, she works and develops her own artistic projects.
She’s been an artist in residence at the Alcove gallery since September 2019.
“Thanks to the Alcove gallery, I can benefit from an inspiring atmosphere as well as some captivating exchanges.”
Artistic Universe
Her artistic work tries to make a connection between three elements: emotions, space and body. They’re all intricately linked to each other, emphasizing how strong is the connection between us, and our environment. This sense of otherness is definitely intense and vertiginous.
Her artworks are mainly made out of hatching patterns, a simple, but repetitive gesture. It seems that the result of a drawing, motivates her as much as the creation process. She plays with various notions such as transparency and density. Her first series “Singapore” is a succession of windows, pointing our gaze onto the singularities of an urban landscape. Curves and straight lines melt to form an architectural and vegetal result.
Inspirations
What inspires her mainly comes from architecture and urbanism, throughout their concrete approach, just as well as what they transmit and develop: ecological engagements, aspiration to make our society evolve towards a “live better together” state of mind.
Comics, graphic novels, but also geography representations and vocabulary also have a great influence in her artwork and universe.
For her first personal exhibition at the gallery, Valerie created her work as an invitation to look in detail at what surrounds us: it could be a movement, some lights who glide over a specific material or even shadows who bring volume and depth to any situation.
In her very last series named after the exhibition name: “Pause”, she proposed to focus only on trunks and stone walls where the only thing that really matters are the lines, and the lights on these materials. The colors borrow to what we can find around us in nature, and are only used as a background.