Violaine Dubernard Laurent

Born in 1970, to a mother who was a professor of comparative literature and art history, Annie Dubernard Laurent, and a father who was an engineer, Violaine Vieillefond was nurtured from childhood by a blend of scientific and artistic influences. Her mother enrolled her at a young age in visual arts workshops, which she attended until adolescence. Living near the Marmottan Museum, they would often go together to admire Monet, particularly the Water Lilies. Her fascination with Monet gradually opened her up to the pictorial world of "Japonism" and "shan shui" landscapes, with which she also became familiar at the nearby Guimet Museum. At 17, in California, she discovered American abstract expressionism, large formats, color fields, as well as photography, which she began practicing from that moment alongside her painting work. Engaged in scientific studies, then in political science, she simultaneously took art history courses. She continued her training at the Ateliers Beaux-Arts of the City of Paris under the tuition of painter Martin Bissière, grandson of Roger Bissière, a major figure of the School of Paris.

An engineer and visual artist, she has always been fascinated by images and the experiences encountered during her scientific studies: colored fluids in motion, micro and macrocosmic worlds, which would come to inhabit her universe and influence her artistic approach. Both through the techniques she uses and through their forms, in which chance plays a significant role, her works highlight the shifting nature of water and its aesthetic and emotional potential. Her work immerses us in a universe of transforming forms and leads us to reflect on the essence of life.

Violaine Vieillefond regularly works in her studios near Paris and in the Alps, but also during her numerous travels, particularly to Venice and Japan. It is in her connection with nature, especially water, that she finds material for her research.

Her first solo exhibition in a museum took place at the Pavillon de l'Eau, with the City of Paris and Eau de Paris, a large exhibition dedicated to her Metamorphoses of Fluids series, from September 2012 to February 2013. She began exhibiting her first installations, inspired by Monet's Water Lilies, in the ponds of Flers Castle Museum (Normandy), in 2014, then at the Paris Science and Industry Museum as well as at the Paris Institute of Technology. In 2017, she transformed both floors of the Abbey of Vertheuil (Médoc) with monumental paper installations, "Water Memories". Then in 2021, she was once again invited by the Flers Museum to exhibit her paintings in dialogue with the Impressionist collections. In 2024, she held her first solo show abroad with L’oro dell’acqua in Venice at the Palazzo Albrizzi-Capello, during the 60th Art Biennale, which was followed by an exhibition of photos and videos of installations in nature, Ninfae, at the Marignana Arte gallery. In 2025, she was invited to Japan by the prestigious Kyoto Institute of Technology to give a lecture on ‘A Dialogue Between East and West. Water as a Pictorial Pattern’ and then in 2026, to hold her first solo museum exhibition in Asia, featuring a series of folding screens in homage to the painter Hokusai.

She has participated in several contemporary art fairs and exhibited at See Galerie in the Marais in Paris, invited by Arnaud Faure Beaulieu. She regularly exhibits in Paris at Galerie Etienne de Causans in the Saint-Germain-des-Prés district.