Barbara Christol’s Artistic Odyssey in New York

There are faces that naturally draw the light, and Barbara Christol’s is one of them. Her works exert a similar power of attraction. From Nîmes, in the Gard department of southern France, where she works, the visual artist weaves a hypnotic connection between her geometric worlds and her audience.

Barbara Christol is a French painter and visual artist. She studied at the École des Beaux-Arts in Nîmes before furthering her knowledge of art history at the Sorbonne University in Paris, where she completed a thesis on the transitional labyrinth.

Barbara Christol’s work oscillates between abstraction and figuration, with a strong emphasis on line. The concept of thread, central to her practice, appears either physically, through weaving and the use of wool, or implicitly, through the lines and structures of her compositions. She approaches creation as a labyrinthine journey, shaped by trial and error, and by repetition.

“I offer a path that is not a straight line.” — Barbara Christol

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The Transitional Labyrinth: From the Blue Rabbit to the Ball of Wool

For the artist, creation is not a linear process. She approaches it as a labyrinth. As she moves forward in her artistic practice, she follows a guiding thread: the line itself.

The term transitional refers to the concept of the transitional object, developed by paediatrician and psychoanalyst D. W. Winnicott. A familiar example is a child’s comfort object — in Barbara Christol’s case, a blue plush rabbit — which serves as a bridge between a young child’s inner world and the outside world. It helps the child move from dependence towards psychological autonomy.

For Barbara Christol, the creative labyrinth is an intermediate space between the artist’s inner world and the visible world of the artwork. In her paintings, lines and compositions oscillate between recognisable forms and abstract structures, reflecting a constant navigation between these two poles.

“When you begin to create, you lose all sense of time. It becomes a world cut off from the world.” — Barbara Christol

Following the Threads of Ariadne and Penelope

In Homer’s Odyssey, during Odysseus’s long absence, Penelope weaves by day and unravels her work by night. She resists her suitors and protects the throne of Ithaca while raising their son, Telemachus. She embodies patience, fidelity and a form of quiet yet formidable intelligence.

“I stand at the intersection of Ariadne and Penelope.” — Barbara Christol

In the myth of the Minotaur, Ariadne is the daughter of King Minos of Crete. The Minotaur is a creature that is half man and half bull. Every year, Athens must send young people as sacrifices to the Minotaur. Theseus volunteers to kill the creature. Ariadne falls in love with him and decides to help him. She gives Theseus a sword and, above all, a ball of thread to guide him out of the labyrinth. She is the one who makes it possible to find a way through the ordeal.

Barbara Christol’s work unfolds within a space of tension between Ariadne’s thread, which connects and guides, and Penelope’s gesture, which weaves, unravels and transforms. It is within this in-between space, this transitional labyrinth, that the artwork emerges, sustained by a dialogue between connection, memory and transformation.

The Colour of My Dreams, or the Geometry of the Intimate

The title of the series Blue Is the Colour of My Dreams is borrowed from Miró. However, Barbara Christol’s first profound artistic revelation came through her encounter with the work of Matisse. She also acknowledges the influence of artists such as Wassily Kandinsky and Paul Klee, whose work shaped her understanding of geometry and abstraction.

“I discovered that there were other ways of conveying emotion, particularly through extremely simple geometric forms.”— Barbara Christol

The series Blue Is the Colour of My Dreams brings together the different strands of the artist’s practice: drawing, geometry and the colour blue, which she describes as “an intrusion into the intimate.”

The artist uses geometry to create in-between spaces, poised between abstraction and figuration. For her, geometry is a means of suggesting landscapes and creating optical effects. It is an invitation to cross a threshold and to see beyond what is immediately visible.

Across the Atlantic: An Artist in the Spotlight

Barbara Christol has travelled alone since completing her studies. Since that time, she has also been working with textiles while exploring geometry in painting, a field historically dominated by men. Her work resonates with certain contemporary feminist approaches. For the artist, textiles are not decorative: they are a medium for connection, exchange and sharing.

“Wool weaves connections, both literally and figuratively.” — Barbara Christol

Barbara Christol’s large blue woollen blanket crossed the Atlantic for the exhibition Code Girl at the Pictorial Foundation in Newburgh, New York State (May 30 – July 26, 2026). For this occasion, the artist gave the work the title Blue Presence.

Code Girl is an extension of the Women in Public Space programme. Its central theme is the visibility of women artists in public spaces, particularly within contemporary art. Blue Presence was activated on several occasions in New York’s urban environment.

The painter is represented by two New York galleries. For Barbara Christol, exhibiting in New York is an extraordinary opportunity to meet people, build connections and sell her work.

“I’m currently working with two galleries in New York: Amsterdam Whitney Gallery in Chelsea and Artifact Projects Gallery in the East Village. They complement each other very well.” — Barbara Christol

At Amsterdam Whitney Gallery in New York, Barbara Christol exhibited around ten works from her series Blue Is the Colour of My Dreams for the first time, between March and May 2025.

In January 2026, she took part in the Los Angeles Art Show with Artifact Projects Gallery, followed by Artexpo New York in April. In July of the same year, she also exhibited at the Hamptons Fine Art Fair in Southampton.

In 2027, the artist is preparing a solo exhibition entitled Between the Lines, once again in New York, in collaboration with Artifact Projects Gallery.