Karen Joubert Cordier (born 29 August 1954) is a French-American artist born in Neuilly-sur-Seine(France).
Joubert Cordier's father was a Compagnie Générale Transatlantique navy captain and her mother was a model. Joubert Cordier had opportunities to explore the world and meet many legendary people, including Coco Chanel, Charlie Chaplin, and Leopold, King of Belgium.
Upon completion of her studies at the Academy Charpentier in Paris, she was counseled by a famous art dealer, Daniel Cordier. Her first show was at the Gallery Beaubourg in Paris, and was followed by a permanent exhibition at the Georges Pompidou Museum.
She has received praise from art critic Bernard Lamarche-Vadel,[1] Jean-Pierre Thébault, Consul General of France in Hong Kong and Macao,[2] and Henrietta Tsui, the Director of Galerie Ora-Ora.[3]
Joubert Cordier has embraced the surrealist and disturbing side of Dalí, the colours of Le Douanier Rousseau, the technique of Arcimboldo and the modernity of Robert Combas.[4]
Her art draws on such movements as expressionism, fauvism, pointillism, postmodernism, and surrealism.[5] She deals with themes of travel, nature, and plant life.
Joubert Cordier tends to use the entirety of her canvases, filling them with detail.
Le Dechainement de Vegetal (translation: the unbridled vegetation) is an accumulation of details of flowers and plants exploded by the use of fluorescent colours and freedom of composition.
Her L'Exotism series features canvases full of plants and animals.
More recently, Joubert Cordier's paintings are inspired by her travels. Being the daughter of the Chief Purser of the liner France, she is widely traveled and has crossed the Atlantic Ocean 49 times.[6] Each of her journeys is a "true source of inspiration".[6] Her work starts on a point where she sketches cartoonlike images of days that pass by. She completes these in her workshop where her brushes will interpret all the knowledge she had assimilated throughout her travelling, transporting the eye into different worlds. The collection could be subdivided into two genres:
This series draws on Joubert Cordier's travels as a child. These encounters marked a unique impression on her and have reinforced a unique vision in her illustrative work. Joubert Cordier translated her experiences with collage of memories, from glamorous Europe to the wave of Pop art and icons of the time.
This title greets the arrival of English and American residents in search of a quiet place at the beginning of the last century. It is the Golden age of "Cote d'Azure" that Joubert Cordier feels. She expresses this feeling in colours of the quiet blue of the sea, the intense and warm red of the sun and especially by Sienna dust which stresses the romantic, nostalgic and sometimes disturbing atmosphere of these subjects in black and white. In these peculiar settings, she introduces people who are the stars in business, movies, arts and novels.[7]
Joubert Cordier's Pop collection is a reminiscence of the comic strips of the childhood days, the American dream, and the chewing gum societies.[8] From economic intelligence to Andy Warhol's Marilyn, from Mickey Mouse to Superman, from Norman Rockwell to Bill Gates, her world is colourful in pure pop art tradition.
Joubert Cordier's works are collected by the Georges Pompidou Museum in Paris, which houses the largest collection of modern art in Europe. Her works are also collected by many others, including former French Prime Minister Jean-Francois Girard, entertainer Elton John and the Rockefeller Foundation.
Many of her paintings are now collected and showcased in national museums, including the Art Modern Museum in Toulouse, and are in the hands of international collectors.
2010
2009
2008
2007
2006
2005
2004
2003
2002
2001
2000
1991 - 1999
1980 - 1990
Permanent exhibitions
Karen x Feria Design Closet has produced a line of products, including perfume (in collaboration with Givenchy), handbags, porches, keychains and T-shirts.