Nicole Peyrafitte is a Pyrenean-born multidisciplinary artist based in Brooklyn, NY. Her work in painting, action painting, writing, film, video, music, and cooking draws upon her eclectic history and the experiences of shaping identity across two continents (Europe and the United States) and four languages (French, Occitan, Spanish, English). Her performances often include food cooked live and served to the audience as sustenance, from whipping cream, crepes and soups, to full dinners.
Biography
Private life
Nicole Peyrafitte was born in Luchon (French Pyrenees) into the 5th generation of a family of restaurateurs and received her early cooking training from her grandfather Joseph Peyrafitte, a renowned chef.[1] Later she perfected her skills, interning at several award-winning restaurants in France. She moved to the United States in 1987, where she developed her career as a collagist, painter, action-painter, singer, poet and filmmaker.
Though Nicole Peyrafitte has no formal art training —except for two painting courses in the early 90s with renowned painter & close friend Dawn Clements—, she has been practicing yoga for over 20 years, bikes & kayaks regularly — all activities linked to her research & work.
Internationally, Birkbeck College, University of London, University of Edinburgh, Université de Bordeaux, Festival les Voix de la Méditerranée,[13] CCA Glasgow, ENSA Limoges, Musée Soulage Rodez, Jardin des Cinq Sens et des Formes Premières, Festival Internacional de las Letras de San Luis Potosí,[14] Encuentro Internacional de Performance en Durango,[15] are some of the venues that have showcased her performances.
Her visual art works are part of the permanent collections of the Musée Paul Valerie Sète, Musée National d’Histoire et d’Art Luxembourg, Bibliothèque du Luxembourg, Glasgow Women's Library Museum and National Literature Centre of Luxembourg.
Performances
Karstic Actions
Since 2011, Nicole Peyrafitte has been working on an open-ended series of live performances which brings together her interests, preoccupations and multiple practices. The KARSTIC-Action Paintings explore proprioception (the sense of body position) and kinesthesia (the sense of body movement) as meeting points between painting, poetry, voice and improvised music. Following her intuition and bypassing a range of traditional inhibitions, Peyrafitte investigates the porosity of her consciousness and unconsciousness with, as tangible aim and outcome, a strong desire to reveal the immanent soul of that moment. Most often the markings are done with the feet, either in hand-stand or head-stand, and/or with mouth-sprayed charcoals or other natural pigments (hands are rarely used to mark, except for smaller formats). Each of these events is unique. Action Paintings have been showcased at the Galerie Simoncini in Luxembourg, at the Salon Zürcher in New York, and are part of the public collections of Musée Paul Valerie Sète, Musée National d’Histoire et d’Art Luxembourg, Bibliothèque du Luxembourg, Glasgow Women's Library Museum and Centre de National Literature du Luxembourg.[16]
Karstic-Action Vote by Nicole Peyrafitte
Selected Performances and Collaborations
Karstic Shelter by Nicole Peyrafitte and Pierre Joris (Domopoetic Works).
Domopoetics : Nicole Peyrafitte and her collaborator and husband Pierre Joris show and perform together a series named Domopoetics Work at Galerie Simoncini in Luxembourg. The first Domopoetic exhibition was presented in 2017 under the name "Peyrafitte/Joris Domopoetic Works".[17] In 2021, a second exhibition named "Travaux/Actions Karstiques" took place.[18]
Trialogues : In 2019 Nicole Peyrafitte, Pierre Joris and Michaël Bisio formed Trialogues, an ongoing collaboration of improvised collaborative exchanges inside a set time limit between 3 protagonists unconditionally dedicated to their chosen mode of expression: Joris to his nomadic poetry in its wandering, rhizomatic explorations; Peyrafitte to her nourishing, sensual, campy and scintillating multi-layered vocal range & texts & live painting; Bisio to the extraordinary tonal beauty and intensity of the very personal musical language of his double bass. It was featured at the Vision Festival XV.
Collaboration with Betsy Damon for her performance Listen, Respect, Revere.[19]
Collaboration with Anne Waldman as a special guest for Trickster Feminism [20]
Collaboration with Anne Waldman in the play Artaud in the Black Lodge [21]
Orgaginal, solo art show & concert at Maison, Luchon, France, 2016[23]
The Bi-Continental Chowder at Firlefanz Gallery, Albany, 2007.[24]
Selected group exhibitions
Women and Other Wild Creatures: Matrilineal Tales, a group exhibition of women artists who draw strength from the connection with the non-human nature, involving it in their healing practices and increasingly fantastical visions of human unity with nature. The show includes artists from Ukraine (Zinaida, Rita Maikova, and Iryna Maksymova) and Kazakhstan (Aya Shalkar and Yerke Abuova), representing the gallery's DNA, as well as works by French (Nicole Peyrafitte) and American (Susan Coyne) artists working in the U.S. Curated by Nina Levent at Sapar Contemporary, New York City, June 3, 2022- August 26, 2022 (Extended).[25]
Aufgabe 2013 #12 Extract of Bi-Valve —Litmus Press, NYC
Anthologie des Voix Vives: Festival de Poésie de Sète France 2013
Jacket2 Jerome Rothenberg's: Poem & poetics blog 2013 — Extract of Bi-Valve in
Some Stories are True That Never Happened, an anthology by Erika Lutzner 2012
Emergency INDEX 2011 - Ugly Duckling Presse
Pierre Joris: Cartographies of the In-Between ed. Peter Cockelberg - Litteraria Pragensia
The Portable Boog Reader 3, an instant anthology of New York City poetry 2010 ;
Invisible Culture: An electronic Journal for Visual Culture. Rochester University;
Anthology des Voix de la Méditerranée Lodève 2008
Revue du Comminges 2008: Augustus Saint-Gaudens: Grand maître de la sculpture américaine, fils de Bernard Saint-Gaudens né à Aspet en 1816 Effing Magazine #2, 2004
The Healing Muse Journal of Literary & Visual Arts -Center for Bioethics & Humanities State University of New York Footballs No7 Art action / Montagne Froide — France
Translations
Occitan to English
Bernat Manciet, Ode to James Dean, Mindmade Books, 2014 [56]
Cesar Vallejo, La Mort, co-translated with Pierre Joris, Wesleyan University Press, 2015 [58]
Nicole Brossard, "Wildly", in Theory, A Sunday, Belladonna, 2013 [59]
Matoub Lounes, "Kenza" & Mustapha Benfodil, "I Conned Myself on a Levantine Day" in The University of California Book of North African Literature, edited by Pierre Joris & Habib Tengour, UCP, 2012 [60]
English to French
Pierre Joris, The Book of U / Le livre des Cormorans, Editions Galerie Simoncini, 2017[43]
Jerome Rothenberg/Ian Tyson: Delight/Délices et autre Gematria Ottezec Press, 1997[61]
George Quasha and Charles Stein, Gary Hill: HanD HearD/Liminal Objects, Station Hill Press of Barrytown, 1997[62]
Whisk! Don't Churn! with Michael Bisio (Ta'wil Productions, 2009)[64]
Sax Soup Poetry & Voice w/ Pierre Joris & Joe Giardullo (Sanctuary for Independent Media Productions, 2007)[65]
The Bi-Continental Chowder (Ta'wil Productions, 2006)[66]
Awards and honors
Best Performance Art Venue: Times Union · Best of 2006 · The top choices in the capital region Nicole Peyrafitte's Experimental Cabaret at Tess’ Lark Tavern.[67]
Best Performance Artist: Times Union · Best of 2005 · The top choices in the capital region.[67]
Reviews
Concerning her work, poet/performer Anne Waldman has written: "Nicole Peyrafitte is a brilliant and most original performer. Her vocalizations, her songs, her gestures are provocative: both stunningly beautiful and powerfully unnerving at times. She is the chthonic goddess come to tempt you, scare you, transform you. She is in the poetic lineage of Greek tragedy, Café Voltaire antics, of dada and surrealist play but with a post-modern, hip sensibility. I am transfixed when she's on stage."[68]
Greg Haymes about "The Bi-Continental Chowder"[24]
