Nadège Marneffe was born in an major textile city in Eastern France known as the birthplace of the Lunéville embroidery tradition and famous for its Art Nouveau environment. Influenced by her father, who was a gardener, and her mother, a seamstress, Marneffe always expressed herself through colourful creativity, taking a special interest in both embroidery and botany.
After receiving a postgraduate degree in fine arts, Marneffe then obtained a PhD in architecture at the ENSA Paris. She soon threw herself into her art, creating an style that lies at the crossroads of art, craftsmanship and decorative arts. Marneffe first displayed her work at the Parisian Atelier Gustave in 2007, afterwards participating in various fairs and collective exhibitions. She then created Millie Baudequin, a brand of luminaires and textile accessories in 2016. Inspired by nature, Marneffe’s bespoke flower-shaped lamps and textile wall hangings were an instant success. Since 2022, Marneffe has focused solely on painting.
Marneffe defines herself as a “colorist.” Colour is her way to connect with living beings and to re-enchant our relationship to them. This poetic vision which strives to bring out connections is meant to irradiate in her paintings as well as in her decorative objects.
An amateur and enthusiastic naturalist, Marneffe finds inspiration through walking, observing, and reading nature-themed literature. Her visual explorations revolve around the sense of being in communion with the living world, the inspiration of her creations.
Marneffe composes her scenes using photographs, further guided by her intuition and mental images. She creates a series of drawings from which main patterns, textures and frames emerge. She then enters the painting phase, a suspended period of time when the gathering process gives way to the freedom, energy, and spontaneity of her brushstrokes. She constantly revises her pictorial scripts, asking herself: “How does one visually translate the wealth and precocity of biodiversity? How does one express the scarcity and fragility of certain species? How can I convey the connections, interactions, and relationships within our ecosystems?
Marneffe does not see herself as a landscape painter. If she is one, it is not from behind a window, but from the outside- from the point of view of a naturalist always ready to be blown away by the unexpected vision of a lynx or an owl. Joy, love, empathy, respect, fascination, reverence. For what truly matters in her art is the life within a scene. Life, ever-piercing through, springs out of her canvases in a beautiful display of strength.
Marneffe’s Kew Garden series is inspired by the dialogue created between the classic architecture and the huge, sumptuous leaves. She envisions the conservatory as a modern paradise, a translucent glass canopy in which every single life exists harmoniously.
Today, Marneffe lives and works in Meudon, a town located on the western edge of Paris with a 50% forest cover. Her workshop is the perfect environment to create her oil paintings on canvas. Marneffe currently has a passion for the flora and fauna of British outdoors, which she contemplates with a slightly offbeat, romantic design twist.