Pauline Douady is a French visual artist whose practice spans drawing, printmaking, and large-scale paintings. Her process is rooted in a hands-on, sensory approach that embraces surprise, memory, and emotional resonance. Largely self-taught, her trajectory has been shaped by formative time in Buenos Aires under the guidance of painter Jorge Demirjian, where she honed her sensitivity to form, balance, and the invisible forces shaping visual composition. Drawn to the material intimacy of lithography, she developed a singular printmaking language centered on unique, limited-edition works, far from traditional reproduction. Her time in the Beaux-Arts schools of Buenos Aires and Angers allowed her to deepen her technical vocabulary while engaging actively with local artistic communities.
Since relocating to Toulon in 2017, the Mediterranean landscape has enriched her visual lexicon and sparked new experiments in intaglio, xylography, and mural painting. In 2019, she co-founded the city’s first printmaking festival, in collaboration with Sacha Stoliarova.
Douady’s work has been exhibited across local galleries, artist-run initiatives, and unconventional spaces, reflecting her commitment to open, dynamic forms of artistic exchange. In recent years, she has expanded into fresco work and continues to explore the intersection of gesture, memory, and sensory perception.
Artistic process
My artwork emerges from a continuous process of construction and deconstruction, where contemplation and creation are inseparable and the path of creation is as essential as the final image. I engage with subjects — a tree, a network of roots, or a landscape — for the way they reflect our shared humanity. These elements mirror our identity and existence.
I believe people absorb the essence of the places they inhabit; their gestures, faces, and behaviors echo the rhythm and shapes of their environment. My work explores this dialogue, showing how the landscape inhabits us as much as we inhabit it.
Through painting, I reveal the connections between nature, human construction, and the human body, as I feel no real separation between them — all arise from the same movement of life. My gestures are both visceral and cerebral, translating inner movement and contemplation into form.
I believe that to create is to fully experience life in each moment, and this is what I wish to share with others. My artistic practice resembles the concept of the rhizome (as developed by Deleuze and Guattari): unlike a hierarchical, vertical structure aimed at a final outcome, my practice is horizontal, continuous, multiple, chaotic — like life itself. It is networked, nourished by human exchange, and develops in environments that foster creativity.
In a world saturated with words and images, I offer a breathing space — a vision and an expression that do not rely on explicit figures or narratives. My work is a journey for the soul, a way of being in the world where inner life is honored. As a synesthete, I perceive sounds as colors, and my heightened sensitivity draws me to the details rather than the overview, revealing subtle connections that might otherwise go unnoticed.
Ultimately, my work questions our place in the universe — our boundaries, our limits, and our profound connection to the living world.