Odile DE FRAYSSINET

Born in 1947 in Santiago, Chile
Lives and works in Vénéjan, France

At the age of 7, she left her native country with her family and spent the rest of her childhood and adolescence travelling from country to country. After completing secondary school, she studied ethnology and Latin American literature in Lima, Peru. Struck by pre-Columbian weaving, she returned to Paris to study Spanish at the Sorbonne. She lived in Algeria from 1970 to 1972, teaching French and  the history of North Africa at the Administrative Training Centre. During that time, she discovered the region’s magnificent rugs and weaving. Next moving to Limoges, France, she gave up teaching to study at the city’s Beaux-Arts. From 1974 to 1978, she created and exhibited rugs before relocating to Paris, where she would work with children with mental disabilities. In 1988, she worked on her series of Vigies, which were exhibited three years later by Galerie Di Meo at the Mars Salon. In 2000, she moved to the Gard department where she took on a new studio in Vénéjan.