Virginia Orbon Retzmann
I was born in Iriga City, in the province of Bicol on the island of Luzon in the Philippines. After having studied chemistry in Manila, I moved to Hong Kong where I was trained in the hotel- and catering management. For many years, I successfully managed the the well-known english Winchester Club and I also ran my own catering business.
In 1990 I moved to Germany to join my husband and have been living in Friedrichsdorf near Frankfurt (Main) ever since. I started painting spontaneously one year later, at first with Hille Koch, a renowned Frankfurt art teacher and water colour painter with whom I still cooperate today. Later, I joined the Frankfurt Malakademie where I mainly worked with Acrylic, but also studied figuarative and porträt drawing and painting. I attended the summer academy of the Frankfurt Städelschule and the European Academy of Fine Art in Trier where I refined my techniques in acrylic painting by attending workshops of the scottish painter and teacher Joe Allen. From 2004 to 2007 I participated in courses at the renowned Slade School of Fine Art in London where I was primarily taught by the Australian artist Hepzibah Rendle-Short. In 2001 I cooperated with Helmut Jahn in a large painting project at Frankfurt Main Railway Station. Since 2005 I also work with the noted Frankfurt painter Michael Siegel in this art school.
Since 1994, I have been exhibiting regularly, mostly in single shows, now and then I take part in joint exhibitions. The most important venues were the Frankfurt Airport Center, which invited me three times already, Friedrichsdorf Town Hall where I also exhibited three times, the Galerie VG in Frankfurt, the gallery in Eltville Castle, the Town Gallery in Bad Soden and many more. I also had exhibitions arranged in England and Arizona.
In 2011 I had a single exhibition in KTC pof Commerzbank in the Spa town of Königstein which was very successful and I had been invited there again, however, I was invited to exhiobit by the President of the State High Court of Hesse in Frankfurt to arrange a show on two floors with some 75 exhibites which seemed a very attractive proposition and I could not arrange two exhibitions at the same time.
The exhibition at the State High Court took place in February 2014.
In March 2020 I had my fourth exhibition in the Townhall of Friedrichsdorf, which was extremely well attended. No other artist had ever been invited 4 time by the town's magistrate.
I am also involved in charity work. Among others, I was able to provide many paintings for the benefit of refugees displaced by the Balkan war, for Haus Miriam in Friedrichsdorf, for a new cage for the bears in Frankfurt’s zoo, for the restauration of an 850 years old norman church in Yorkshire, for an irrigation project in North Africa run by World Vision, just to name a few.
I have an on-line gallery with Saatchi in London.
