Born in 1941, Simone Pheulpin is a French textile sculptor who lives and works in the Vosges, France. Her works are the result of an instinctive expression that uses both the suppleness and firmness of an untreated, natural material, a simple non-bleached cotton. She revisits the landscapes of lakes and mountains of this land of textiles between the folds of her works and the thousands of pins that support them. Self-taught, the artist has developed her own technique, which she has been perfecting for nearly 50 years. With her original and innovative practice, she supports and uses exclusively cotton from one of the last Vosges manufacturers, but also pins from the last French sewing pin factory.

Simone Pheulpin’s mastery of sculptural work allows her to transform strips of raw cotton fabric into works that are in turn coral, shell, moss, bark, fossilised stone, or ivory, reflecting the materials, textures and patterns that have inspired the artist. Mono-material, monochrome, her work opens up an infinite number of possibilities of shapes and volumes.This long and meticulous work of stacking, winding, tightening is for her a meditative process. Concealing the tangled pins that hold her sculptures, the unbleached fabric leaves only an organic trompe-l’oeil to be seen.

Pheulpin’s output is intrinsically and aesthetically linked to the history and geography of the Vosges, which is characterised by forests and lakes.Pheulpin’s material of choice is invariably raw cotton, traditionally used for the lining of curtains and as a support fabric. She buys the monochrome fabric from one of the last French textile factories in the Vosges region in northeastern France. In her masterful hands, this ordinary material is transformed into extraordinary feats of imagination.She considers the fabric her partner,“If the fabric doesn’t want to go in the place that I’d like, I’ll do what it wants,”she says.“It’s always the fabric that wins, it’s never me.”