My art is a quest towards Womanhood and everything surrounding it. Love, self-image, sexuality, motherhood, infertility, self-healing and more. I paint the types of Femininity too often forgotten. And since it can be a bit overwhelming sometimes, I do it with a lot of colors
Raphaële Anfré is born in 1990 in France, daughter of a Rwandese mother and a
French father. She spent the first eighteen years of her life living successively in Uganda,
France, Hungary, Kenya and Turkey. For the past twelve years she has been living in
Paris.
Raphaële is an artist and a fashion designer. She is passionate about art and traditional
handcraft. She always drew, as far back as she can remember. After studying
at the École de la Chambre Syndicale de la Couture Parisienne (Parisian fashion
school), she joined a high end ready-to-wear French fashion House. She was responsible
for the creation, the development and the production of four collections per year. In
2016 she leaves and decides to fully commit to her art. She dictates to herself a new
way of drawing. So far, she was used to traditional techniques with the idea of “what to
do, what not to do, what is right, what is wrong” leaned at the École Nationale Supérieure
des Beaux-Arts de Paris (Parisian art school) and the École de la Chambre Syndicale
de la Couture Parisienne but she decides not to use any pencil or eraser anymore.
She eliminates the concept of error in drawing and chooses to apply colours directly. In
2018 she starts her own fashion House, named “Ë.L.E Paris” after the last three letters
of her first name, also the homophonous of “ELLE”, “SHE”, in French. A high-end readyto-
wear brand, made in France, with a collection of hand painted unique pieces.
Raphaële Anfré’s artworks are full of colours, curves and sensuality. She often talks about
her art as an “Erotisme Pudique” in French, meaning a “Chaste Eroticism”. She explores
the different ways femininity can be unveil, how nudity can be painted while eclipsing
the nude aspect. She creates elements, often related to nature, to illustrate femininity.
She then uses these elements to tell a story about what being a woman means to her.
How womanhood is an addition of elements evolving throughout life. Painting about,
self-image, sexuality, motherhood, fertility, infertility, and more.
Her paintings are directly inspired by the feminine figure and are a tribute to all the different
forms of Womanhood.
« My inspiration is from my own story. The story of a kid, who became a young
girl, then a woman and who is looking for her own Femininity. I’m inspired by the feminine
figure. My own, but also other women ones. I study their lines, their curves, their
hollows, and I redraw them. I often draw « close-ups », to really have to look at the elements.
I excessively simplified them to make them minimalist and abstract in order to
lost us, to make us think, and to encourage us to really look at them. While undressing
those female bodies, I dress them with colors and textures. My art is a quest towards
Womanhood and everything surrounding it. Love, self-image, sexuality, motherhood,
infertility, self-healing and more. I paint the types of Femininity too often forgotten. And
since it can be a bit overwhelming sometimes, I do it with a lot of colours »
