Aude Verbrugge

Born in 1987, in Gien, France

Lives and works in Brooklyn, NY

Verbrugge’s work is about emotional architecture. Through large paintings of architecture and infrastructure and by connecting these images of places together through their visual similarities, she seek to orientate the spectator in a different place, a mental space.

There is something futuristic about the architecture she is representing. These places seem unreal and it is unclear if they do really exist. They could be the background of a science fiction movie, but they seem already dated, from the past. They are taking us back to the imagery of the space age, a time when architecture was getting out of its primitive function of shelter and dwelling and was dreaming of a future and an ideal world. These utopias are now lost, the dreams failed, the party is over.

Each series is constructed as an environment, where the paintings of buildings become a horizon and the sculptures are places from which to contemplate this landscape of architecture while also being reflections of it. In the continuity of the Romantic painters and their delight in the terrifying sublime in nature, she draws a similar melancholic look, but Nature has been replaced by contemporary architecture.

Education

2011 Master’s Degree in Fine Arts, Ecole Supérieure des Beaux Arts, Montpellier, France

2009 Bachelor’s Degree in Fine Arts, Ecole Supérieure des Beaux Arts, Montpellier, France

2005 Bachelor’s Degree in Modern Litterature, University Paul Valery, Montpellier, France

Exhibitions

2023 Residents exhibition, Saturn’s Return, San Juan Islands, WA

2022. Two person exhibition, “Last Song, Lost Thoughts”, Railroad, Brussels, BE

2020     Group exhibition “Wide Open”, BWAC, Brooklyn, NY

2019    Group exhibition “Show your World”, Gallery MC, New York, NY

2019    Open Studios, Bushwick Open Studios, Brooklyn, NY

2019    Group exhibition “Priority Mail Biennale” at Ground Floor Gallery, Brooklyn, NY

2019    Group exhibition “Now is the Future” at Local Projects, Long Island City, NY

2011    Solo exhibition, ESBAMA, Montpellier, France 

2010    Group exhibition “Temps Reels” at FRAC LR, Regional Fund of Contemporary Art, Montpellier, France.

2008    Video projection at the Concert for the Centenary of the birth of Olivier Messiaen, Conservatory of Music, Montpellier, France.

Awards / Residency

2023. Artist in Residency, Saturn’s Return, San Juan Islands, WA

2020. Award for “Architectural”, Artrepreneur, 1st prize.