1998 DNSEP degree, Ecole des Beaux-Arts, Marseille

1999-2000 Residency at Astérides, Marseille

Depuis 1999 Artists' assistant and exhibition installer at la Friche de la Belle-de-Mai

Group shows
2000 Regards de femmes, Espace mode Méditerranée, Marseille

1998 "9h02/13h24", ENSBA, Galerie Gauche, Paris

1996 Video intervention during the Festival International des Arts de la Mode, Villa Noailles, Hyères

La Femme et le Féminin, Salle de L' Aigalier, Martigues

1995 Carte Blanche at l'Ecole des Beaux-Arts, Galerie Remp'Art, Toulon

Solo exhibitions
1997 le )Ol(', association Ouarf, Marseille

29 years old

1, 2, 3, nous irons au bois...
photo : Pierre-Laurent De Luca

Don't go by appearances.
Peggy Despres' curious objects are not toys.
"I accept the playful quality in my work", she affirms, "however, if my works raise a smile..."
At the Beaux-arts in 1995 she undertakes the laying out of her body measurements with a first work, "Envergure" (Girth), describing the amplitude of her arms and legs, somewhat in the manner of Leonardo da Vinci. Save for the fact that her universal man is a woman, and in fabric: "a means of reflecting on form", she says. The body stripped of its carnal matter, in short. She explains: " In the beginning, I always stumbled onto a pathos I had no control over. I wanted to speak about the body without it being present."

The following year, a video sequence shows a female character sparring off once more against a robe with no exit, imprisoned in this harrowing envelope. The breakthrough will come later on, while deconstructing used clothing at Emmaus. She undoes garments, letting the lines that others have stitched guide her, without ever cutting. What results are unlikely forms no longer resembling a garment, but which preserve a trace, of an onirical order, of sensuality. From there, a glossary gradually fell into place, containing dozens of strange and oddly evocative forms. The next step involves reconstructing them in everyday materials like synthetic fur, which immediately brings something familiar to mind . In this way her hands give birth to imaginary silhouettes, a mutant population, based on the bizarreness of the human form.