Isabelle Arthuis (born in 1969 in Le Mans) is a French artist who divides her time between France and Belgium. She has had numerous exhibitions abroad. She is present on the French art scene, in public collections, FRACs and art centres. She is very attached to Brittany, where this former student of the Beaux-arts in Rennes spends several months each year working, and has exhibited there on numerous occasions.
"Although she describes herself primarily as a photographer, Isabelle Arthuis produces images that take the form of silver prints, which she often prints herself, never hesitating to crop, turn or invert; very large posters, which she often puts up in public spaces, or installations in exhibition spaces; artists' books or slideshows, in which she plays with visual and chromatic continuations; and films, which she treats in an almost pictorialist way. The many subjects of her photographs and the way in which she looks at the world around her with her camera bring her closer to the realm of painting, in that she does not seek to portray an objectivity of reality but, on the contrary, an entirely assumed subjectivity in her relationship with the world that she shares with others. Seascapes or urban landscapes, portraits of fishermen or bodies in motion, photographs of paintings, frescoes or audiovisual images are all part of her work. It is 'the relationship to the world, more than the world itself, the interstice in which the gaze lies as a way of being' that is revealed in the treatment Isabelle Arthuis puts her photographs through between their publication or exhibition." (
Jean-Marc Huitorel, 2000)
