Fantasy and authentic materials with Rebecca Campeau
Artistes Actuels has been interested in the work of artist Rebecca Campeau since its beginnings. The magazine has already devoted an article to her (read also: Rebecca Campeau, textile artist), and her work can be found on the online gallery and has been presented at three physical exhibitions in Paris. To round off the 2024 season, Artistes Actuels brings you a new conversation with Rebecca, available as a podcast, a new portrait and new, previously unpublished works.
Passion and perpetual motion as creative forces
Rebecca Campeau likes to tell stories by giving life to old objects and materials that have been neglected.
Her studio is like a cabinet of curiosities, home to characters of all sizes, from life-size to miniature. Alone, in groups or in crowds, they all have a singular identity. Paused, pensive, facetious or grimacing, they are the mirror of our humanity.
100 ideas and more!
Fashion, theater, set design, museums – Rebecca has had a hundred lives!
Her taste for materials led her to fashion school. Photographer Franck Horvat encouraged her to take a less conventional route to enrich her skills. She then collaborated with the Franck Horvat studio on the “Vraies-Semblances” project, and made her magazine debut at ELLE.
Her passion and energy led her into the world of fashion photography, advertising, styling and manual creation for 100 Idées magazine. This do-it-yourself magazine from the ’70s and ’80s was a witness to a cheerful, inventive era, advocating authenticity and fantasy, just like our artist.
She soon abandoned the glossy world of fashion for theater and museum scenography: With the Atelier des 3 Coups, she worked with Claude Lévi-Strauss, Paul-Emile Victor, Marcel Meyer, Giada Ricci, Véronique Dollfus and Anne Gratadour.
A sharp, burlesque view of city lights
In her artistic work, Rebecca Campeau seems to be frenetically searching for that joyful, authentic, fantastical inventiveness that animated the artisans and creators of a bygone era. Her nostalgia for the city of the past, alive with artisans and singular characters, drives her creations: The Paris of Toulouse-Lautrec, Victor Hugo, Honoré Daumier, Jacques Tatie and the burlesque vagabond à la Charlie Chaplin.
Rebecca Campeau hunts and accumulates materials and objects, as well as awards: Jean Anouilh in 2019, Fondation Taylor in 2021 with de Grand Prix Renée Béja, Artension 2022 at Salon Figuration Critique, BOHIN in 2023.
Her work can be seen in a number of museums, including La Coopérative-Musée Cérès Franco, the Gustave Flaubert and Medicine Museum in Rouen, the Inclined Plan Museum in Ronquières and the Arthur Masson Museum in Belgium, and the Cité du Train Museum in Mulhouse.
The editorial team
The thrill of artistic discoveries
