"My artwork has always told the stories of my life. As a young adult, when I lost my parents after long illnesses, I crossed the Atlantic Ocean to rebuild myself, and drawing was my lifeboat. When I became a mother, drawing also anchored me through the chaos of parenthood. Later, when cancer attacked my body, it was by sculpting clay that I was able to keep my head above water. For me, doing is a vital need."
Born in France, trained at the Royal College of Art in London and the Ecole Nationale Supérieure des Arts Appliqués et Métiers d'Arts in Paris, Jeanne Verdoux lives and works in New York.
After a lifetime of working exclusively in two dimensions through drawing and printmaking, she made a powerful discovery: she was a sculptor. Working with clay opened up within her a never-ending desire to construct new forms.
Her field of research is the female body, an expression of her experience as a woman as a daughter, wife and mother.
Jeanne Verdoux has received awards from numerous institutions, including the Villa Medici “Hors-les-Murs,” the New York State Art Council, the Queens Arts Fund, the Bronx Museum, the New York Foundation for the Arts, the Lower Manhattan Cultural Council, the French Institute in Morocco, and the New York City Artist Corps. Her work is included in several collections, including the MoMA Print & Drawing Collection and the New York Public Library Print Collection.
His work has been exhibited in Paris, New York, London, Boston, Montreal and Shanghai and published in the New York Times, the Boston Globe and the Huffington Post.
She is a professor at Parsons School of Design and New York University.
