Isabelle Vrinat
Biography
My path has developed at the intersection of painting, literature and cinema.
After studying Modern Literature and Film at Sorbonne Nouvelle University (Paris III), I completed a PhD in Comparative Literature, focusing on the relationship between writing and painting in the work of a Bulgarian modernist artist of the interwar period.
At the same time, life drawing at the Académie de la Grande Chaumière and regular visits to museums shaped my eye as a painter.
After completing my studies, I wrote several screenplays before devoting myself fully to painting. Years later, having become a painter, I returned to one of them, centred on the relationship between a woman painter and her model. I rewrote it in the light of my experience in the studio and my painting practice, and eventually directed the film myself. In this film, painting becomes narrative, while narrative finds its way back into painting.
My work has been presented in solo exhibitions in France and Bulgaria, notably in Paris and Sofia, as well as at the Rendez-vous de l’Histoire festival in Blois. In 2018, I also presented my work to third-year students at INALCO in Paris.
Solo Exhibitions
2025 – "The Painter and her Model (paintings"), Pathé Cinema, Le Mans, in conjunction with a screening of my film The Painter and the Model.
2023 – "Dance now ! We shall be the last;" Blois University Library, as part of the Rendez-vous de l’Histoire festival in Blois, whose theme that year was The Living and the Dead.
2018 – "Corps à corps", Spazio Gallery, Sofia, Bulgaria.
2017 – "Metamorphosis", Atelier Françoise, Paris.
2008 – "Le Fleuve inversé", Château des Longues Allées, Saint-Jean-de-Braye.
2006 – "Nouant et dénouant leur course fraternelle", Galerie Mathurin, Tours.
2005 – "Nom de pays : la couleur", Maison du Loir-et-Cher, exhibition presented by the Conseil général du Loir-et-Cher, Blois.
Group Exhibitions
2011 – "Festina lente (Carcasses et envolées)", Cloître des Augustins, Montoire-sur-le-Loir.
Media Coverage of My Exhibitions
September 2018 – Bulgarian National Television.
July 2009 – France 3 Centre–Île-de-France.
February 2005 – France 3 Centre–Île-de-France.
Art History Lectures
Since 2009, I have given series of art history lectures for general audiences in Le Mans, Orléans, Blois and Vendôme.