Rose Vidal

Artist, author, and critic, Rose Vidal holds a singular place on the contemporary scene. A graduate of the École des Arts Décoratifs de Paris in 2025 following a literature degree, she develops a hybrid practice where fiction and visual arts serve the purpose of care. Under the label of 'painkiller artist' (or pain mercenary), she explores the idea of the artwork as a curative or palliative device, capable of treating the ills of our societies.

Her debut novel, Drama doll (Éditions Gallimard, 2025), marks the culmination of a reflection begun during a prestigious residency at the Villa Medici in 2023. An active critic for the journal Décor and the site AOC, she has also collaborated with the Palais de Tokyo on the landmark exhibition 'Exposé·es.' Rose Vidal is committed to restoring a fundamental social function to art: the transmission and sharing of pain. Through her installations, performances, and writings, she transforms artistic gestures into laboratories of resilience, proving that if pain is a key to understanding the world, art is the only vehicle capable of changing its representations.

Rose Vidal's residency project at Rocabella marks a decisive step in her investigation into the opioid crisis. Having theorized pain in Drama doll, she now seeks to confront her research with the human realities of this epidemic. This stay is conceived as a space for synthesis and visual creation before departing for the United States, following in the footsteps of her characters and the 'stories without stories' in the spirit of Ray Carver.

In the conducive calm of the estate, Rose works on inventing 'plastic remedies': works at the intersection of design and performance, intended to soften our engagement with the world. She develops a method of listening and writing to gather the narratives of those fighting or suffering from addiction, transforming her investigation into a space for exchanging critical tools. At Rocabella, the aim is to close the cycle of her first book and open a second, more direct and anthropological one. Using art as an antidote to the silences of the crisis, Rose Vidal aspires for her works to be not merely objects of contemplation, but instruments for measuring and addressing the deep cultural challenges of our time.