Stephanie Billarant

Phasmagorie

2021

Born in Nantes into a family of artists, Stéphanie Billarant joined the city’s music conservatory from an early age, while completing her dance training. These disciplines will make her aware of freedom of movement and freedom of imagination. The young woman then moved to North Carolina where she obtained a BA in Communication and Art at the University of Wake Forest. At the same time, she sells her first canvas. ​ ​Although she has been painting since she was 14, it was when she returned to Nantes 8 years later that the artist decided to devote all of her time to artistic production. To realize her works, Stéphanie Billarant is inspired by circus, dance, performing arts but also her personal life and photography, a practice that allows her to discover and exploit ink and switch her works in black and white. Photography and painting go hand in hand according to the artist and define themselves as the main mediums of his production. His inspirations characterize all of his artistic creation. A creation that links itself to a quest for research between experimentation and abstraction, where architecture and nature take on the play of an abstract aesthetic, where movement and trajectory meet to present an imaginary, unreal and fantastic world. ​ Stéphanie Billarant uses Patricio Rojas San Martin’s quote to describe her series of works entitled Tropisme: «The line, the nuance, the light and the darkness open the way, establish the form, reveal the density of the thought. No need to look for treasure on the edge of immensity. The key to the secret lies at the bottom of the well, in the jungle and desert of our own life experience.” Today, the artist is reintroducing colour in his works, with a view to a new challenge of creativity