Embodied Landscape, September 14-22,BeArtz, Sauveterre-de-Bearn, Southern France
Embodied Landscape: A week long immersive retreat exploring abstraction through daily drawing, mark making and encaustic painting, informed by place, memory and geological processes.
Embodied Landscape is a week-long immersive retreat exploring abstraction through daily drawing, mark-making, and encaustic painting, informed by place, memory, and geological processes.
Led by encaustic artist Isabelle Gaborit, the retreat invites participants to move beyond literal representation and instead respond to the landscape through sensation, gesture, texture, and atmosphere. The unique environment of BEArtz — its medieval architecture, river, stone, shifting light, and Pyrenean horizons — acts as a catalyst for creative inquiry rather than a subject to be copied.
Each day follows a rhythm of on-site observation, guided sketching, and studio work. Drawing functions as a visual diary, allowing participants to explore gesture, rhythm, and texture through rapid sketches, intuitive observation, and mark-making exercises. These drawings build visual memory and become the primary source material for painting.
In the studio, drawings are translated into encaustic works through an intuitive, process-driven approach. Participants learn to trust the materiality of wax as layers are heated, fused, cooled, scraped back, and reworked, echoing geological processes such as accretion, erosion, and transformation. Techniques include layering and transparency, subtractive methods, scoring and incising, and relief-based textural build-up.
Rather than depicting landscape literally, abstraction is approached as distillation — simplifying form, reducing complexity, and working with light, atmosphere, and surface. The process encourages letting go of control, embracing chance, and allowing the work to evolve over time.
About the Workshop
Participants will:
- Develop a consistent daily drawing practice
- Understand how drawing feeds abstraction and mark-making
- Gain confidence working intuitively with encaustic
- Learn layering, translucency, and surface development
- Explore abstraction through improvisation, elimination, and selection
- Translate landscape, memory, and emotion into non-representational imagery
Skill Levels
This retreat is open to all levels:
- Beginners will receive clear guidance and foundational skills
- Experienced artists will be encouraged to experiment, loosen control, and deepen abstraction
Individual feedback and group discussions will support each participant’s development.
About the Location
BEArtz — Arts in the Béarn
BEArtz is housed in a thousand-year-old Guard House (formerly A Boste), a small castle located on the Camino de Santiago in the medieval village of Sauveterre-de-Béarn. Lovingly restored, it offers a warm, home-like atmosphere filled with art, history, and a strong sense of community.
Perched above the Gave d’Oloron river with expansive views of the Pyrenees, the location provides an exceptional setting for creative immersion. Artists are drawn back year after year by the continuity, inspiration, and sense of belonging the residency offers.
Click here for location and accessibility.
Cost
Rooms vary from 2850 for shared room to 3950 for ensuite room. 3550 for room with WC across the hall way, but ensuite shower, please look at photos of rooms on BeArtz website.
Course includes a welcome drink on the 14th, six days of lunches ( light lunch) and dinners, three course meal with wine.
Day trip to Espelette and Choko Ona , one star Michelin restaurant , full or art, ( lunch not included , budget 50 euros without wine) and a private visit to extraordinary caves and grottos with prehistoric art and rock formations ( included).
Collection of participants at around 4pm to 5pm on the 14th September from San Sebastian or Biarritz airport. For travel and transport arrangements please see our location page.
This retreat is generously supported R&F Handmade Paints.
TO REGISTER: please contact Magdalena Groszek at info@be-artz.com
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