Chisholm Gallery

Lavergne, Frédérique

French Contemporary

“Her artistic abilities arrived at the age of four. She has been drawing since she knew how to place her little finger in the mud. Frédérique remembers, “My mother was a designer and I saw her drawing throughout my childhood. When we went to visit our horses at the stable in Rambouillet forest, which is close to Paris, we stayed there for the weekend. My parents used to go for long rides in the forest, and I stayed at the stable with the horses. I learned to ride and began drawing horses there.”

View a Complete Gallery of Frédérique Lavergne’s work

Growing up with creative equestrian parents, Frédérique learned early how to paint and ride. She learned the smells, the mess, the struggle to control the uncontrollable urge to paint horses; the special knowledge only painters keep of how colors will blend and mix, the magic of a horse’s heart, soul and chemistry and capturing it on canvas. “I paint horses first because I feel a strong link to them,” explains Frédérique. “When I paint I am absent from this world. I don’t talk a lot and I realized very young that horses talk with their soul. I find them beautiful, of course, but I am fascinated by their powerful soul, by their generosity to humans. They have a symbolic force and, from my convictions, they are able to go from one world to another, from our human world to the one of invisible. That’s why they help us to know who we are.”
– Extract of an article by Gina Mc Night in Going Gaited