©Maurizio Pighizzini
Julie Safirstein's work revolves around colour, and is developed in different fields: drawings, paintings, editions, artist's books and children’s books, immersive installations and videos for the Centre Pompidou; design, scenography and windows display for major brand such as Hermès.
“Whatever the project or medium, my initial intention always sterns from the desire to experiment a tool or a material. The propreties of a material or the possibilities offered by a tool act as a trigger from which I seek to create, using color, a volume or the illusion of volume, movement or depht. This process creates a disturbance that allows me to question our perception of the word around us.”
Visual artist born in 1977, lives and works in Paris.
Graduated from the Institut Supérieur des Arts Appliqués in Paris in graphic design
École Supérieure des Beaux-Arts in Marseille, painting district
Art publishing
In 2013, Maeght Éditeur published a first edition of her work, Poésies dessinées, a collection of lithographed leporello books ; followed by Rubâi'yât and Ah! Sunflower, two hand-painted and teared carousel books in limited edition boxes, numbered and signed. In 2021, Éditions du Livre published Bloom, an object book without text, printed in 5 direct tones, somewhere between artist's book and design object. In 2022, Atelier RLD published two series of prints, La gymnastique des objets, 45 different woodcuts prints, and Fleurs, 3 different woodcuts prints, in limited, numbered and signed edition. Since 2016, Julie Safirstein has also been taking part in Livres Pauvres, a collection of hand-painted and hand-written books initiated by collector Daniel Leuwers and exhibited at the Musée Ronsard in Tours.
Children’s publishing
In 2013, Julie Safirstein had two memory games published by MeMo Éditions, followed by Le jour la nuit tout autour, a large-format imagier, published by Hélium. This book won the Prix Sorcières awarded by the ABF and ASLJ, and the Aide à la Création Artistique et Littéraire from the Conseil Général du Val-de-Marne. Julie Safirstein is also the author of Et j'ai rêvé le jour, published by Albin Michel Jeunesse, for which she received the Création d'Aide à l'Écriture grant awarded by the Centre National du Livre.
Exhibitions
Julie Safirstein has exhibited her studio work - drawings, paintings, paper sculptures and immersive installations - on several occasions at the La Hune Brenner gallery (Paris) and the 0fr gallery (Paris). In 2020, she created Hexacolore, an immersive installation built from six painted wooden panels, cut out and partially covered with mirrors, co-produced by the Centre Georges Pompidou and Mille forme. Hexacolore was exhibited at the Centre Pompidou in Paris and at the Centre d'art Mille formes in Clermont Ferrand. It is touring since, travelling to a number of venues in France and abroad. Julie Safirstein is also taking part in the Centre Pompidou web series Mon petit œil, making three short animated films: Rythme Bleu, Rythme Rouge and Rythme Vert. She also designs outdoor exhibitions, such as Face à face, an exhibition on the panels of the Cours Jean-Jaurès in Moulin as part of the Biennale des Illustrateurs 2021.
Scenography
As a scenographer, she created in 2019 La forêt lunaire, for the Hermès store rue de Sèvres in Paris, windows and interior. For this project, she designed the windows display, some "shelf-shapes" for the Petit h space, a monumental suspended forest, and produced paintings on leather for the placemats in the café-restaurant. Since then, she has worked regularly with Hermès on a range of scenographic projects, including Chants Grecs in 2021 for the windows display of the rue de Sèvres store in Paris, or Paysages rêvés in 2023 for the window displays of two Hermès stores at the Paris-Charles de Gaulle airport and the window display of the Hermès store at the Istanbul airport (Turkey).
Design
Hermès Petit h published Julie Safirstein first design piece in 2022, Bibliothèque Cheval, a bookcase representing a two-meter-high Trojan horse, entirely sheathed in leather and silk, as a one-off. She has since designed three other bookcases for Hermès Petit h: Bibliothèque Éléphant, Étagère Faisan and Bibliothèque Dragon. These pieces were presented during the Hermès Petit h stopovers in Dubai (United Arab Emirates), Bangkok (Thailand), Osaka (Japan) and Beijing (China).
Collaborations
Julie Safirstein also works with the press (press drawings for Air France Magazine, cover illustration for novels by L'École des Loisirs), fashion (creation of textile drawings and patterns for the spanish brand Arrels Barcelona), and events (creation of menus and place cards for the launch dinner of the French version of Harper's Bazaar magazine at the Beaux-Arts in Paris, with Bureau FM-François Motte).
Workshops
Julie Safirstein designs and runs occasional workshops (Livre d'artiste workshops at the MACVAL museum in Ivry-sur-Seine, Image imprimée workshops for sick children at the Pitié Salpêtrière hospital in Paris, Christmas workshops for the Hermès shop in Paris).