Christel Delrieu Petraud

Born in Toulouse in 1976, Christel Delrieu Pétraud, also known as Kitou, is a French contemporary visual artist whose work explores the connections between identity, perception, and light.

Trained at the University of Fine Arts and Art History in Toulouse, she earned a Master’s degree in Fine Arts, specializing in color, before turning to graphic design and web design, fields in which she worked for a decade. This experience in digital media profoundly influenced her artistic approach, fostering a reflection on the relationship between matter and pixel, between the human and technology.

Since 2012, she has devoted herself entirely to her artistic practice. Her painting occupies the space between figurative and abstract art, combining acrylics, inks, various mediums, and digital techniques. Through her signature series such as Shadow Colors, Blur, and Matrix, she investigates the boundary between the visible and the invisible, between form and trace, memory and the present moment.

An instinctive colorist, Christel Delrieu Pétraud plays with light, contrasts, and textures to reveal the emotional strength of her subjects. She has also developed her own graphic alphabet of lines and structures, giving her works a dimension that is both poetic and scientific.

Exhibited in France and internationally (Spain, Belgium, Italy, the United States), she has received several distinctions, including the Gold Medal at the Foro Europa for Art in Madrid in 2016. Her works are included in numerous private and institutional collections, notably at the Palestine Museum USA (Connecticut).

Through her work, Christel Delrieu Pétraud invites viewers to a sensitive contemplation of the world: a dialogue between emotion and reason, color and light, the visible and the invisible.