After taking a step back from illustration, artist Godeleine de Rosamel has worked primarily in ceramics, creating unique life-forms and vegetation that inhabit a whimsical yet earthly domain. She embraces the innocence of her childhood drawings, bringing those creatures from the page into our third dimension. De Rosamel's interest in natural history is evident not only in her subject matter, but also in her process. She combines materials like clay, pigment, and sticks to create creatures that appear to come from a world adjacent to our own. 

In de Rosamel’s practice, she assumes the role of “Creator” by sculpting new species to populate her human-less utopia. In her world, politics, gender, and suffering do not exist. Instead, her charming, well-fed creatures roam freely through forests and sleep under trees. They reside in an idealized setting, where leisure and tranquility are at the forefront. Through her earthy color palette and each creature’s laissez faire demeanor, she maintains a softness and levity in her work. Her world is a utopia far from our own, and far from the devastating impacts of human activities on biodiversity on our planet. 

Godeleine de Rosamel is a French artist based in Los Angeles, California. Born in Lille, France, de Rosamel’s passion for art began early when she was just a child drawing animals and taking her first ceramics class at the Musée des Arts Décoratifs. In 1986, she attended the Ecole de Recherche Graphique (ERG) in Brussels, Belgium, where she graduated with a Fine Arts degree and began a career as a children’s book illustrator. Her whimsical illustrations have been featured in a number of books in France and Belgium. In 2001, she moved to Los Angeles and continued her career as an illustrator for several years until ultimately switching gears and to focus on her ceramics practice.