THE ADVENTUROUS travel to the exotic while the zany move there. Parisian artist Delphine Groult-de Lorme belongs to the second category, visiting the Philippines in 2006 with her husband, determined to find a new home in one of the islands.

Iloilo was top on the list simply because “the name was very attractive to us,” Delphine explained, “Almost like Bora Bora. It sounded very exotic.”

For one month, they moved from island to island— Guimaras, Bohol, Siargao and Palawan, among others—and found Cebu to be the most livable after they discovered the International School. So they flew back to Paris to convince their three kids to move.

To her then seven-year-old girl, she said, “If we move to Cebu, you can swim with Nemo every day.” To her 14-year-old son, “you can ride a motorbike every day and the girls are gorgeous.” And to her 15-year-old daughter, “I swear you’ll be bilingual in six months!”

And so five months later, after selling everything in Paris and having a week’s worth of going-away parties, they settled in Cebu.

“It’s definitely the craziest thing I’ve done, moving here. It’s crazier than dancing on the table—even if I like to dance on the table,” Delphine says with a grin.

The move was a bit of a shock at first, and it took a bit of getting used to for this Bohemian couple to understand the non-verbal Filipino way of saying yes—raising both eyebrows— and of getting directions— pointing with the mouth.

“But we just fell in love with the people. We met so many people who have nothing yet were willing to give everything,” Delphine exclaimed. “Unlike the self-absorbed culture of Europe, people here understand humanity. They live in the present. We Europeans tend to live in the future. We’re constantly thinking about what we’ll do when we have more money.”

Not that the De Lorme’s were not successful in Paris. He was an esteemed TV producer, and she was a well-known TV personality and artist who hobnobbed with Paris’ who’s who. But for this free-spirited woman, dropping the glamorous lifestyle to live an adventure mattered more.

“To choose to live the way I live, to follow my desire, to do everything to be able to do what I want took a lot of sacrifices. That’s the paradox of life. You want to do everything perfectly but you just can’t,” Delphine laments. “I want to be the perfect wife, mother, artist and woman. But when you’re playing so many roles, you’re divided. You have to make concessions.”

No regrets though for this 42-year-old creative spirit. She is doing exactly what she wants to be doing: painting barefoot. Inspired by popular art and culture, her paintings are a blend of old prints and paint, fused to create an indistinguishable collage of pop art.

“I usually tear an old movie poster, which I buy from the flea markets in Paris, then paint over it,” she explains. “Some of my works are pure paint, some are pure collage, you don’t know if it’s one or the other. I like it when people can’t tell anymore.”

She is deeply inspired by the works of Italian artist Mimmo Rotella, who is best known for his collage made from torn advertising posters, as well as pop artists Andy Warhol, Roy Lichtenstein and Peter Blake, abstract expressionist painter Jasper Johns and neo-expressionist Jean-Michel Basquiat.

She flies to Paris once a year to buy old movie posters and commercial tarpaulins. Her one disappointment about Cebu is the lack of commercial posters she can tear. There’s nothing except for Tanduay posters, and the occasional face of a government official running for election.

Although Delphine never formally studied art, she comes from a family of artists. Her grand uncle, Andre Groult, was a well-known art deco interior designer. She studied theater and dance but learned how to paint from her father who was also a painter.

Every Saturday when she was growing up, he would take her to a seaside village in Brittany to paint. This routine gave her the discipline to finish what she starts. Her earlier works were very classical—she would paint everything from Renoir to Raoul Dufy, until she found her own colorful, abstract expression.

Her paintings have an edgy glamour to it. The subject is almost always a glamorous girl with a weapon—a sexy siren who imparts strength and sex appeal with a hint of violence. Quite simply, she wants to show the power of a woman. She believes that a girl’s strength doesn’t lie only in a weapon but also in her power of seduction. The feminist in her believes there’d be less war if there were more women in power.

“A woman has to fight more than a man. If she wants to be heard, she has to fight. Even in art, less than 10 percent of artists are females. Just like in politics. But women are capable of doing so much. In fact, women do more than men. In one day, active women have to juggle work, their husband, their children, and still do most, if not all, the household chores,” she says.

“I like to paint glamorous girls because life’s always more fun when there is glamour. I don’t want to paint anything sad or anything too intellectual. I just want to add fun and glamour and color to life,” she adds.

Even her collection of furniture is pure pop-art glamour. Her cabinets are ultra feminine and Parisian yet modern with bold, bright colors, made for storing lingerie or whatever knickknacks.

“It’s interesting to have art on furniture. I think they’re funny,” she says of her cabinet drawers with figures of sexy girls painted on the top surface, with one of the cabinet’s legs shaped like that of the girl’s legs in high heels.

Her paintings are showcased at Opera Gallery, a contemporary art gallery in all the world’s major art capitals. If you check out the one in Singapore, she’s proud to say her painting is right next to Picasso’s.

Her furniture is displayed in Manila at AC+632 at Greenbelt 5 and at Firma in Greenbelt 3. Her furniture and paintings are also available in Cebu, in the boutique she designed called Garu at Imperial Palace Waterpark Resort and Spa.

Visit the artist’s website at www.delphinegroult.com or e-mail her at contact@delphinegroult.com.