Rafaëlle Labourgade

French painter Rafaëlle Labourgade is a graduate of the École Nationale Supérieure des Beaux-Arts in Paris, having also attended the Accademia delle Belle Arti in Florence. Over forty years, her life and work have taken her from Paris to Italy, West Africa, the Indian Ocean, Tunisia, Marseille, and Venice, before returning to France, where she now lives in the hinterland of Cannes.

In 2026, she presented Between Heartbeats (Entre deux battements), a two-part monumental painting cycle bringing together Our Shadows (2017) and At Dawn (2026), as part of the Venice Biennale's off-programme, in an independent exhibition running from May to July.

Her work has been exhibited internationally and is held in public and private collections, including galleries across France, Belgium, Tunisia and Venice — among them Galerie AVM and BY Chatel Fine Arts in Paris, Stream Art Gallery in Brussels, Galerie Ammar Farhat in Tunis, and Galleria S. Eufemia in Venice. Working primarily in oil, soft pastel, charcoal and black stone, she explores the human figure as a space of presence, vulnerability and fragile connection. Her paintings inhabit the threshold between appearance and disappearance, weaving together poetry, human engagement and the dignity of those too often left unseen.

Alongside her painting practice, she has led numerous artistic and social projects, including public murals, participatory works, the creation of a museum in Africa, and an art project with migrant high school students in Paris. She has also collaborated with Amnesty International, SOS Méditerranée and UNESCO.

A solo exhibition in Shanghai is planned for 2027.

French painter Rafaëlle Labourgade is a graduate of the École Nationale Supérieure des Beaux-Arts in Paris, having also attended the Accademia delle Belle Arti in Florence. Over the past forty years, she has lived and worked in Paris, Marseille, Florence and Venice, in Tunisia, across West Africa, and in the Comoros, in the Indian Ocean, each of these places and the encounters she made there nourishing and shaping her outlook and technique. She now lives in the hinterland of Cannes.

At the heart of her painting lies the human figure — a site of presence, vulnerability and relation. Working in oil, soft pastel, charcoal, black stone, colour pigments, and gouaches, she explores every format, including the most monumental, to give shape to a singular pictorial language: figures emerge, dissolve and take new form at the threshold between visibility and disappearance. Rather than following fixed narratives, her work reveals states of tension, suspension and fragile connection. Across these materials, formats and techniques, she gives form to inner landscapes, faces and human destinies — weaving together poetry and human engagement, and restoring dignity to those too often left unseen.

Her works belong to international public and private collections, and have been exhibited in numerous galleries and institutions — including the Institut du Monde Arabe in Paris, the Casa del Mantegna in Mantua, French cultural centres in Africa and Italy, and galleries such as Galerie AVM and BY Chatel Fine Arts in Paris, Stream Art Gallery in Brussels, Galerie Ammar Farhat in Tunis, and Galleria S. Eufemia in Venice.

Alongside her painting practice, she has led numerous public and participatory art projects: the museography of the permanent collection of the National Museum of Conakry, the design of Guinea's international airport interiors, the founding of an art school in the Comoros, a mural created with residents of Giudecca, a fresco realised with inmates of Venice's women's prison, an art project with migrant high school students in Paris, and a reworking of Doisneau's iconic "Le Baiser", wheatpasted the next night at the sites of the 2015 Paris attacks. She has collaborated with Amnesty International, SOS Méditerranée and UNESCO.

In 2026, as part of the Venice Biennale's off-programme, she presented Between Heartbeats (Entre deux battements) at Palazzo Contarini Polignac, in an independent exhibition running from May to July. The work brought together two monumental triptychs — Our Shadows (2017) and At Dawn (2026) — conceived as a single journey: from exile to belonging, from dehumanisation to hope, from shadow to light. A two-part voyage into human vulnerability and the power of transmission.

A solo exhibition in Shanghai is planned for 2027.

Solo Exhibitions

2026 — Between Heartbeats, Magazzino Gallery, Palazzo Contarini Polignac, Venice

2025 — Studio Opening, Mons, Provence

2021 — Stream Art Gallery, Brussels

2017 — Andrea Tardini Gallery, Venice; Mairie du 9e, Paris

2016 — Andrea Tardini Gallery, Venice; Audiens, A Cry Against Exclusion, Paris

2014 — BY Chatel Selected Fine Arts, Paris; Galerie AVM, Paris

2013 — Galerie Sabine Puget, Fox-Amphoux

2011 — Galleria S. Eufemia, Venice; Galerie Olivier Nouvellet, Paris

2010 — The Fall of the Angel, Sala del Camino, Chiostro di SS Cosma e Damiano, Venice; Galleria S. Eufemia, Venice; Galerie d'Est et d'Ouest, Paris

2009 — Galleria S. Eufemia, Venice

2008 — Rencontre des toiles (guest of honour), Ménerbes

2007 — Galerie d'Est et d'Ouest, Paris

2006 — Galerie Ammar Farhat, Tunis

2005 — Galerie Justine Lacroix, Marseille

2004 — Galerie Sylvie Alépée-Ebert, Paris; Galerie Ammar Farhat, Tunis

2002 — Galerie La Tour des Cardinaux, Marseille; Galerie Ammar Farhat, Tunis

2000 — Galerie Racine, Paris; Galerie Ammar Farhat, Tunis

1999 — Galerie La Tour des Cardinaux, L'Isle-sur-la-Sorgue; Franco-Guinean Cultural Centre, Conakry

1998 — Institut français du Mali, Bamako

1996 — Galerie Mansart, Paris

1990 — Alliance française de Moroni, Comoros

1989 — Alliance française de Moroni, Comoros; Maison des Beaux-Arts, Paris

Group Exhibitions

2014 — Festival of European Cultures, UNESCO, Paris

2012 — Galleria S. Eufemia, Venice; Galerie Olivier Nouvellet, Paris

2010 — Galerie d'Est et d'Ouest, Paris

2009 — Galleria S. Eufemia, Venice

2008 — Carrousel du Louvre, Galerie d'Est et d'Ouest, Paris

2007 — Vœux d'artistes, Paris, Marseille, Toulouse

2006 — Galerie Ammar Farhat, Tunis; Vœux d'artistes, Paris, Lyon, Marseille, Toulouse

2005 — Galerie Ammar Farhat, Tunis; Vœux d'artistes, Paris, Lyon, Marseille, Toulouse

2004 — Vœux d'artistes, Marseille

2003 — Galerie La Tour des Cardinaux, Marseille

2002 — Galerie Ammar Farhat, Tunis

2001 — Galerie Ammar Farhat, Tunis

1997 — Les Toiles du Sud, Conakry

1996 — Salon des Grands et Jeunes d'Aujourd'hui, Paris

1995 — Salon des Grands et Jeunes d'Aujourd'hui, Paris

1994 — Amnesty International, France

1993 — Festival d'Art contemporain, Nancy

1992 — Festival d'Art contemporain, Le Touquet

1990 — Galerie Jeanne Moussian, Carnac

1989 — Institut français d'Égypte, Cairo; Institut français de Madagascar, Antananarivo

1988 — Institut français du Koweït, Jabriya

1987 — Centre culturel de Beaulieu, Nantes

1986 — Maison des Beaux-Arts, Paris

Projects

2017 — Set design for Tony Harrisson's play Les Exilés, Paris, Avignon

2016 — Selected by the Mouvement pour la fraternité générale and exhibited at Hôtel de Ville metro station, in partnership with the association Le Carillon, Paris; works lent and a set created for the film Le Rire de ma mère by Colombe Savignac and Pascal Ralite, Paris; publication of a series of drawings in the weekly Le 1, Paris; "appropriation" of Doisneau's Baiser for a poster put up at all the sites of the Paris attacks, Paris

2012 — Creation of a mural for and with the inhabitants of Giudecca Island as part of the Festival delle arti, Venice

2009–2010 — Creation of a fresco on the walls of the women's prison on Giudecca Island, working alongside the inmates, Venice; The Fall of the Angel (450 × 300 cm), a painting for the struggle against exclusion, Paris, Venice

2004–2005 — Decorations for the Cité des Arts de la Rue, Marseille

1997–1998 — Artistic design and execution of the interior and exterior spaces of the national and international airports, Conakry, Guinea

1997 — Scenography for Vallées du Niger (Valley of the Niger), a travelling exhibition co-produced by France and six West African countries to promote the preservation of endangered cultural heritage, Conakry; Réunion des Musées nationaux, Paris

1996 — Museography of the permanent collection of the National Museum of Conakry, Guinea

1993–1996 — Creation of an interior design enterprise, Bamako, Mali

1990 — Frescoes for the residence of the President of the Comoros, M. Ahmed Abdallah

1989 — Illustrations for Hachette publishing house, Paris

1987 — Creation of an art gallery intended to promote young artists, Paris; founding of an art school in the Comoros

Between Heartbeats

Two monumental triptychs — Our Shadows and At Dawn — respond to one another and together form a single immersive work: Between Heartbeats. Presented for the first time in Venice in 2026 at the Magazzino Gallery of Palazzo Contarini Polignac, in resonance with the theme of that year's Art Biennale in Venice.

Venice Art Biennale 2026, Magazzino Gallery, Palazzo Contarini Polignac

Charcoal & Black Chalk

Those We Forget

A series of 16 large-scale works created in compressed charcoal and black chalk on Canson paper, produced in Paris between 2012 and 2016.

Embraces

A series of 8 large-scale works created in compressed charcoal and black chalk on Canson paper, produced in Paris between 2012 and 2014.

The Sleeper in Montmartre

A large-scale work created in compressed charcoal and black chalk on Canson paper, produced in Paris in 2021. In progress.

The Fall of the Angel I & II

The Fall of the Angel I — Marseille, 2004

An unfinished work from Marseille, 2004, resumed: the painting is being completed in the artist's studio in Provence, France, a process that will be documented on video.