Nicole Peyrafitte is a French-born American multidisciplinary artist based as of 2024 in Brooklyn, NY. Her work includes painting, action painting, writing, film, video, music, and cooking, which 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.
She moved to the United States in 1987, where she developed her career as a collagist, painter, action-painter, singer, poet and filmmaker.[citation needed]
Peyrafitte had only a limited formal art training – two painting courses in the early 1990s with painter and friend Dawn Clements – but has been practicing yoga, bicycling and kayaks, all activities linked to her art.[citation needed]
Since 2011, Nicole Peyrafitte has been working on an open-ended series of live performances which brings together her interests, preoccupations, and practices. The KARSTIC-Action Paintings explore proprioception (sense of body position) and kinesthesia (sense of body movement) as meeting points between painting, poetry, voice, and improvised music. Following her intuition, Peyrafitte investigates the thin line between her consciousness and unconsciousness, with a strong desire to reveal the immediate soul of that moment. Most often the markings on canvas are done with the feet, either in hand-stand or head-stand; each of these events is unique. Her "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 an ongoing collaboration between three protagonists dedicated to their chosen mode of expression: Joris to his nomadic poetry; Peyrafitte to her nourishing, sensual, and campy singing, spoken word, and live painting; and Bisio playing his double bass. It was featured at the Vision Festival XV.[citation needed]
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 their non-human nature, healing practices, and visions of human unity with nature. The show was 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 also reviewed her about "The Bi-Continental Chowder".[24]
