By dint of entwining the thread of her thoughts and her most nuanced ropes; by means of interweaving the tactile practices and techniques of yesteryear, Véronique de Soultrait has managed to conjure the artistic promise of the craftsman’s gesture and make marvels appear. 

It is from her studio in Lyon that she defuses déjà vu with reliefs and renderings, drawing as much inspiration from spirals and the serpentine as from Mondrian’s love of the line. Wall decorations, partitions, doors and trellised panels have caught the eye of interior architects and designers and are now exported to places where beauty reigns from on high: from the banks of Paris to the great restaurants along the coast, from Shanghai to Dubai. – “It’s not because I aim for simplicity that I give into taking the easy route: I’m not the only one who works with this material, but I do it in my own way, and I don’t really think much of being a pioneer or an inventor.” And if, with each order, there lingers the fear of expectation, Véronique knows she can count on her sense of composition, she who has always found her balance between the heritage of a surname with a nobiliary particle and the desire to eschew it without shame. Like her father who assumed his title of Count while working as a “gentleman farmer” – “his hands were rough, as if they had been passed through an agricultural machine” –, Véronique integrated High Society’s ways without totally becoming wrapped up in its sways.

There was certainly the fabulous Bourbonnais family castle where a childhood bloomed under a trio of Italian-style arcades, with strolls through the large park where bunches of cyclamens were gathered in spades. But the hypersensitive girl’s desires also resonated under the Renaissance-style building; the teenager, already quick to “nit-pick,” opposed the drawing, painting and literary expeditions of a future that protocol designed to be as limited as it would be linear –

 “All that was hoped for me was that I would meet a husband at a ball and attend secretarial school. My imagination was my escape, my refuge! I ended up sneaking into the Beaux-Arts competition. After that, I lived five years of fun, crazy encounters and absolute happiness.”