Dorothée
Vantorre is an artist born in Calais, where she currently lives and
works.
Coming
from a creative family, Dorothée grew up in a large, dilapidated
house among cats, her father's medical newspapers, and her mother's
creations. Demonstrating an early taste and talent for sculpting, she
began working with polymer clay at the age of six.
Twenty
years later, after a year of art history studies (deemed too
theoretical) followed by architectural studies, Dorothée graduated
in 2008. She worked for an architecture studio for two years but
eventually left to write a book on sculpting and start her jewelry
business.
As
a successful businesswoman but a frustrated and aspiring artist, she
began to transition towards a professional art career in 2020 and
dedicated herself entirely to art from 2022.
Dorothée
has been fascinated since childhood by artists like Jérôme Bosch,
Picasso, Aubrey Beardsley, Japanese art, Pop surrealism, African art,
Art Nouveau, architecture, biological oddities, dolls, puppets, and
other miniature figures. Her main sources of inspiration are nature
and improbable juxtapositions. She constantly asks herself, "What
if?"
For
the past decade, Dorothée has been giving life to a fantastic
menagerie imbued with childlike innocence tinged with subtle
darkness. Her sculptures feature precise and delicate details and
depict hybrid beings resulting from mutations following an ecological
catastrophe, possibly divine in nature, from a distant future in
which humanity has disappeared.
Dorothée's
sculptures are primarily made of polymer clay, but, being
environmentally conscious, she increasingly incorporates natural
materials (felted wool), reclaimed objects, and recycled materials
like cardboard and paper mache into her work.
Group
Exhibitions
2023 Art
Aux Caps, Tardinghen, France
2023 :
October 1st to December 31, Vivarium, online collective exhibition
curated by Lisa
Britton and Alejandra Orozco (Pretty Girls Making Cool Shit), USA
2022:
Hashtags, Arc-en-Ciel Cultural Center, Liévin, France
2019:
Dentelle Etc., Fashion and Lace Museum, Calais, France
2014:
Metamorphoses, Vol. II, Arludik Gallery, Paris, France
2014:
The Broken Internet Project, virtual collective exhibition.
EuroSynergy 2014, International Polymer Clay Association, Malta
