Vaea Bourgeois

About

I’m a French artist, producer and creative director, born in Tahiti, raised in Tokyo and now based on the French Riviera. I tell stories with images that I bring to life through photography and moving image. I explore themes of transformation and the quest for inner sovereignty, using sculptural adornment, landscape and symbolism.

Statement

I aim to make images that are beautiful and sometimes erotic, but I want them to be more than that. I hope to make them stop you in your steps. Beauty, aesthetics and eroticism are an important part of my visual identity, but not just for their own sake. I use them as a way into the work. Beauty draws you in, and then the story, symbolism and emotion begin to play their part. My work is layered, sometimes ambiguous, always playful. The stories I tell are autobiographical and at the same time universal. Transformation, symbolism and the search for inner sovereignty are at the core of my work. I’m interested in the moments in life when our identity breaks, collapses and shifts. I use the body, landscape and sculptural adornment to reflect what’s going on deep inside of us. They are visual metaphors of an inner state of being, from graceful to chaotic, and all our truths that lie in between. I’m inspired by art history, mythology, alchemy, Tarot, poetry, fashion and Jungian archetypes. These references mix instinctively in my work. I use them to tell stories about metamorphosis, about women and the different ways we evolve in our lives, through challenges, rupture and breakthroughs. The way I work is about building a world around each project. I begin with a story, and then develop everything around it. I bring together photography, moving image, the body, costume, sculptural adornment, craft and landscape, as well as the creative and technical team the project needs. It takes a village! Collaboration is essential to the way I work, I strongly believe in bringing talents together. We create, we sweat, we laugh together, and it shows. And let’s be honest, I could never do all of it alone. But the concept, narrative and overall visual direction remain at the heart of my role from beginning to end. My path into art happened organically. It wasn’t planned. I originally trained and worked in journalism before studying floral design and beginning to create crowns, masks and botanical sculptures. Over time, those objects became part of larger photographic narratives, allowing me to tell stories about women. I followed my instinct and my heart, and one thing led to another. I have recently completed SYLVÆ: The Forest Within, my first large-scale photographic project created in Brittany. The work hasn’t yet been released publicly, and I’m taking my time to decide how and where I want it to be seen. I’m still figuring things out. I’m still learning about the art ecosystem, its codes, its actors… I created the work before the strategy. But the calling came from so deep inside me that I had to answer it without thinking too much about what I was going to do with it. It’s amazing to bring a vision into reality. It takes guts, clear vision and bit of delusion. I think it’s one of the best feelings in the world, and I feel incredibly lucky to have experienced it.