Solène Rigou draws around the theme of memory and recollection using different techniques and media: coloured pencil on wood or projection screen, ink or graphite on paper. She uses objects, places or hands to evoke visual or emotional experiences.The motif of the hands does not impose itself on the viewer; anyone can relate them to a personal memory. She captures memories that you have not experienced, that you cannot remember.
As Solène Rigou recalls memories, she develops a kind of pictorial autobiographical diary, in which she finds these memories.This allows her to recreate a moment in time and spend long hours, several days, working from photographs.Very attached to objects and memories, Solène Rigou reveals the desired image layer by layer with coloured pencils and immerses herself in the memories.
Solène Rigou graduated from the École Nationale Supérieure des Beaux-Arts in Paris, in the studios of Jean-Michel Alberola (2015‑2018) and then Stéphane Calais (2018‑2020). In 2019, she was awarded the Prix du Dessin Contemporain des Beaux-Arts de Paris, and in 2022 she received the 2nd Prize of the Pierre-David Weill Drawing Award, presented by the Académie des Beaux-Arts.
The artist has had several solo exhibitions in Switzerland and in Paris (Galerie C) and has participated in numerous exhibitions in France, notably at the Beaux-Arts (2019), at Villa Belleville (2019), and at La Fab. (2020). In 2024, she presented her first institutional solo exhibition in France, L’heure passagère, at the Centre Jacques Brel in Thionville (France).
Her work has recently been acquired by the Centre national des arts plastiques (CNAP), by the Musée Jenisch (Switzerland), and is included in private collections in South Korea, the United States, England, Austria, Germany, Switzerland, …
