Virginie Loze
Born in 1964
Lives and works in Toulouse
Virginie Loze creates a world filled with unsettling hybrid creatures caught in comical situations. Her outlook on the world is conveyed through the prism of fantasy and subversion. Her uncompromising brand of humour is reminiscent of the caricatures and comics of underground culture. The images she produces shed light on the threats that challenge individuals and the compromises to their integrity. These images are rooted in today’s social, political and environmental concerns. The artist started out with simple line drawings in various formats, to which she then added fragments of projected videos. Her later use of dry pastel on larger formats enabled her to broaden the range of her narrative apparatus. She currently uses acrylic paint on canvas. In addition to these works, Loze is also known for her commissioned site-specific monumental murals.
Her bold and spontaneous linework brings grotesque composite creatures to life. From the worlds thus created, lyrical metaphors of personal and universal situations arise. Guided by what is conscious and repressed, these ambiguous figures materialise in dual and enigmatic images. Captured in these meticulous compositions, they act as searing allegories, each of which is as puzzling as dream images and heuristic visions.
Virginie Loze
Translated by Lucy Pons, 2022