Simonin, Francine

A prolific and impetuous artist, Francine Simonin developed an aesthetic of pure expressionism, centered on the power of the line. Her style is defined by explosive gestures, where the brush or the burin seems to slash the medium to extract vital energy. Her works, often large-scale, explore erosion, traces, and above all the human body, which she deconstructs to capture only its movement and emotional tension.

Her artistic philosophy centered on the liberation of instinct. For Simonin, art was not meant to be polished; it had to be visceral. She viewed creation as a physical struggle with the material, rejecting aesthetic complacency in search of a raw truth. Her philosophy rested on the immediacy of the gesture and the autonomy of the line, establishing her as a leading figure who merged the technical rigor of European printmaking with the unbridled freedom of North American abstraction.