10 Questions with Marie Wuithier

Marie Wuithier is an autodidact artist born in Reims (France) in 1990. Since she was a child, Marie has been interested in creation (stylism, narration, design, drawing). Nevertheless, her facilities and love of sciences and environment pushed her to study water science engineering. It was something like a challenge for her. And this Challenge helped her a lot to win in confidence, to discover new places (Montpellier, India, Lyon, Niger, Djibouti, Ethiopia, South Africa, Kenya ), and to come back stronger, more conscious of herself and of what she wanted to give to the world. In the beginning, painting was like a game to help her manage her work stress. Then, she became a volunteer for an art association, "Taverne Gutenberg" in Lyon, where she was so excited to see the artist process and inspired by other artists. She became aware that art is within her grasp, she is an artist, and she has to trust in her art. After this confidence shot, it becomes deeper and deeper, she discovers what can be a life with art, and she chooses to experiment with it with patience.

Marie moved to Djibouti in 2018 to continue experimenting with other lives, discover new landscapes and cultures, and paint more. In Djibouti, she created with friends, besides her work (for the French Development Agency), an afterwork named "Djib'Tonic". Marie's aim was to help people stop working at 6 pm and to LIVE, meet new people, discover art, and open their minds. She organized 3 exhibitions where she showed her art alongside other artists. Marie loved the feeling she experienced while living in Djibouti. To sum it up in 3 things: adaptation, serenity induced by the landscapes, place to create (no frame). These can summarize what she researches in her process of creation.

At the end of her contract in Djibouti, Marie went to Ghana in the Perforcraze International Art Residency. She took part in a 3 weeks art residency when the COVID pandemic began in March 2020. She chose to work on the abstract representation of emotions. She also performed a live painting with the Nigerian artist Ibukun Sunday, a great musician.
After coming back to France during the quarantine, she began a new series of self-portraits about the physical characteristics she didn't like; the aim was to help herself like it. To accept who she is, and even more: to love who she is.

Besides, she had to go back to work to pay the cost of life. She chose a new job in Mont-de-Marsan in the West South of France: she became "Water Chief Manager" in a community. She chose Mont-de-Marsan because she knows it's good to be in a place she's never been before, to manage her life like she really wants (private reserve time to paint, for example).
As always, she continued to create and meet people, even in the pandemic time. She made a series of colored landscapes representing different parts of the world she visited and exhibited them during the quarantine in a hospital in Mont-de-Marsan, in April 2021. She also made a live painting performance there in July 2021. The same series was exhibited in the decoration store "A select store" in Sète in September 2021.
She took part in a feminist group as treasurer and organized festival during the year of 2021. During this festival she exhibited her portrait of Monique Lubin, and she managed a workshop for a group of women. This project aims to break the women's physical normes by helping women who want to paint themselves in the feeling of love.
She was exhibited at the Matrimonial journey, in September 2021 in Villeneuve de Marsan where she chose to show the portraits of women beside the Natural landscapes: natural women in the nature.
To conclude 2021, she took part in the Contemporary Art Center Christmas exhibition in Mont de Marsan, where she sells her paintings during December 2021.
Now, Marie feels it's time to offer more of her time to her passion. She is interested in going to residencies, developing her process, working with other artists, giving courses, and performing.

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ARTIST STATEMENT

Inspired, curious, and sensitive, Marie likes to offer herself the freedom to imagine and create without codes but her feelings, taste, instinct, and careful balance. She likes to sprinkle glitter on life to reveal its true emotional richness between contrasts, sensitivity, and magnificence.
Her goal is to be as close as possible to the splendor of life because it's so good to feel. In her opinion, everything is beautiful, interesting, and welcome, and it just depends on our gaze and our interior, the color, and the outfit we give to it. Between the portraits that touch her heart, the landscapes she wishes to represent as they inhabit her, the music, melodies, and vibrations cross her. Marie is experimenting.
Isn't that the point of our lives? To experiment?
Indeed, you will see in Marie's painting different kinds of practices different techniques (pastel, watercolors, acrylics, collage). She practices her art on various supports, subjects, and styles (realism, impressionism, abstract, a mix of different styles). Marie loves to play with lines, with perspectives, light, and contrasts.
Again, for Marie, the purpose is not to enter into a compartment by becoming recognized in an art discipline, but more to explore the compartment and give feelings to her spectators.

INTERVIEW

You have traveled extensively and worked in various different countries. What is your favorite experience so far as an artist? And what is your favorite place out of the ones you have lived in? 

I visited some countries, but I only lived for more than 6 months only in Djibouti and France. As an artist, my favorite experience was to discover the Perfocraze International Artist Residency in Kumasi in Ghana with Va-Bene (CrazinisT artisT studiO). It was very short, also because I went there in March 2020 (COVID beginning). Living my life and traveling alone is always a challenge that gives me a huge liberty feeling. In Kumasi, it was an experience to visit Accra, which is very beautiful, to research all that I need to create in Kumasi (to find canvas, painting, printer, as a new resident who has only 2 number of people she doesn't know to call and ask if they can help her haha), to create my artistic project there about feelings, about music, and about what I saw there. The team opened my mind a lot about their lives and their art (music, video, painting, performances, a lot of performances!) and also about the consequences of colonization and racism in the domain of art (for example the art which presents something "exotic" by representing black people by a white people - It was very interesting for me to discuss my art with them about this subject). They encouraged me a lot to do my performance, too, with Ibunkun Sunday and Lilly Pfalzer. It was a live painting inside a little "home" to represent my "private cocoon" on the live creation music by Ibukun. Ibukun was creating the music following my painting, and it was also the same for me, I was painting depending on what made me feel each song. It's pushing you to feel the song more and more. It's introspective analysis mixed with the sharing of it by painting.
My favorite place out of the ones I have lived in Djibouti because of the feeling it induced in me. The heat, the sun, the desert, the sea (and its wonderful life inside). In Djibouti, you only need to sit on a mountain and look, it makes you calm, marveled, and feeling lucky.
Also, in Djibouti, colors are very peaceful thanks to the sun and its luminosity.

You also have collected a great number of experiences, in terms of career. Tell us about your background and past projects. 

At the beginning of my art, I was in love with watercolors which gave me the liberty feelings thanks to its "out of control" result. So I produced some very personal products speaking about colors (as fun) I want in my common life in Lyon. For example, I was drawing with pencil and adding watercolors in some parts, to contrast, and add something like a liberty dream to my drawing.

Then, I moved to Djibouti. It was an explosion of feelings for me. Newness is an amazing sensation. In Djibouti, I discovered new landscapes, new humans with their different cultures, new work, new friends, new city, new art, and I discovered myself. All of this was a huge inspiration and made me create two sets which were exhibited in our afterworks "Djibtonic". The first one was on the subject "Shadow in Djibouti". Indeed, shadow is your best friend below the sun of Djibouti. So it was a very interesting subject to see how each artist interpreted the shadow. I produced 3 paintings on canvas with acrylic and collage, one about the sun's shadow representing mens seated in the shadow of one very little building, one other about the shadow inside one building, one other about the "shadow" of the new port of Djibouti on the old one.

After that I chose to do a set of artwork on paper by using China black ink to draw the mains lines. Why? Because I discovered the ink technique in Lisboa in an art workshop during my holidays. I loved the feeling produced by the ink when it's applied with a nib, something "out of control" too... something not perfectly straight. 
I made this set about Harar and Djibouti. My aim was to represent the image of common life (fries, tree, crow, street,...) where I was feeling a sensation of gratitude. In Djibouti, I also decided to create some big canva, to exerce me on a big format. I represented 3 portraits of peoples by using acrylics: the curiosity of children I met in Harar, an Afar woman wearing traditional clothes, a woman selling fish which means a lot of things I discovered by living in Djibouti : hope, adaptation, and happiness with basic lifes.

Next project was in Kumasi in Ghana, at the Perfocraze International Artist residency which I presented to you above.
There, my aim was to take time to think about my representation of emotions. Which colors, what kind of lines, which forms, etc... Loving the domain of photography too, I produced an exhibition which was mixing photography and painting. The painting was my representation of the emotion I feel by looking at my photography. It was a great experience, I invited spectators to write which feeling was giving them the painting. Some were the same, some so different. It proves how we are different, we don't look at the same subject, and the same object can induce different feelings for two people.
Due to COVID and health problems, in 2020, I chose to come back in France at the beginning to wait for better moments to travel and also to develop my art in my birth country. One of my aims was to make my art recognized in my country, to exist as an artist in France.
I began a project of selfportrait on small-size paper, to question myself and to question part of me I don't like to see. It was a challenge to represent it and to love it. I did it also for my friend Capucine for whom I painted 4 portraits. Thanks to the success of this set, I decided to continue this project by opening it to all people who want to participate, so right now I made 10 more portraits, and I have a waiting list of 15 to do in 2022.

I hope to exhibit this set by speaking on the physical society rules which push us to hate some part of us... To fight this.
During my quarantine at the end of 2020, I was working the day, and painting the evening to develop a new set of landscapes from the world (places where I was), which was missing me A LOT. At this moment I began to draw with pastel. I was searching for a way to express myself very speedily, abruptly. The pastel gave me this feeling, nothing to prepare, you have just to draw fast. It's very instinctive because of the speed of the creation process. The landscape was nourishing me : I can't travel, but I can create my travels and reproduce the feeling I had when I was there.
This set of landscapes was exhibited in the hospital of Mont-de-Marsan (care home department), and it will be exhibited again in the Maternity in January 2022. It was also exhibited in the decoration store A select store in Sète and in the Contemporary Art Center in Mont-de-Marsan in 2021.

What is your personal aim as an artist?

As an artist, I aim to open windows and to show the beauty of life: for me by offering myself the liberty to create what I want by exploring all techniques; for my spectators to encourage them to evade themself, make them feel peace & gratitude, cross over the boundaries that exist in their lives (to open their mind), feel and love life.

What are the main themes behind your work?

The main themes behind my work concern the beauty of nature and our Earth, of little common life things, of humans. For me, all is beauty as long as its lives, even sadness. 
I loved to represent landscapes without human interactions during my quarantine. But most of the time, I'm very interested in representing the symbiosis relationship between human civilization and the environment.
If I have to characterize my art with three feelings, I would choose curiosity, surprise, and joy.

What aspect of your work do you pay particular attention to?

I pay attention to using my feelings to paint and use the feeling to represent what I want to. I also want to produce my artwork in the same style (composing a set). It's like a creation of a family which will interact together. To reach it, to have a good match between each, you need to take care of each artwork's details by thinking about the other artwork at the same time. 
The layout in the space is very important for me, too. I research a perfect balance in each of my artwork. It's true for forms and objects, and it's also true for the colors. I need to arrange each color with the others, which will give a good composition. And to finish, I play a lot with contrast effects in my artworks.

Where do you find inspiration for your work and what is your creative process like? 

I find most of my inspiration in nature, traveling, and people.
These steps can resume my creative process: 1) Feeling - curiosity, enjoy the moment, feel the spirit of the place and peoples; 2) Capture - take memories by filming or photography - to paint it more later in a suitable place; 3) Observation - I take time to feel and choose what I want to show 4) Brainstorming - I do a brainstorming about which techniques and process I want to use to represent with my best the spirit I want to show: so it makes me chose the support adapted to the technique; 4) Schematization - by drawing with pencil the arrangement: I make a scheme; 6) Expression by painting; 7) Balance - I implement and evaluate my artwork to find at the end the perfect balance to finish it.

Is there anything you would like to experiment with? Any new technique or format you would like to incorporate in your work?

I would like to experiment with all that I can, but unfortunately, I have to choose. So, to begin, I would like to take the time to create a set of big canvases (size like 1 meter, 2 meters) and do mural paintings (inside and outside).
Concerning techniques, I would like to develop my acrylic painting technique, explore more watercolor on paper, and at the end, I would like to experiment with oil painting.
Creating music is a very important thing for me too, I would like to explore it maybe by creating my own music which will embrace my art. But this is more close to a dream :).
I want to create complete universes where I will invite the spectator into my world thanks to the song, the visual, the sensation, the smell—a complete experience.
To finish, I would love to create clothes (designing the pattern and the shape). Or to work with a stylist.

What about the public? Did you experience any change or improvement over the last year? Do you think people are more attentive now than pre-Covid? 

Good question. I really don't know because I changed my location a lot between 2020 and 2022, so I can't compare.
What I saw is on the internet. I think art helped many people manage the quarantine period because art can come easily to your home thanks to the internet. Art is becoming more and more accessible thanks to the internet and app like Instagram. BUT, one thing I saw is that people don't move a lot to see art in real life in this period, in France. I don't know if it's my location (Mont-de-Marsan), the consequences of quarantines, the different vaccines' rules, etc.

What are you working on now, and what are your plans for the future in terms of new projects?

I'm working on portraits of people who want to love their physical appearance, which is not "perfect" as our society dictates to us. I'm also on a pastel artwork representing the Pyrénées (mountains in the southwest of France).
In 2022, I would like to make a set of artwork about the Pays Basque (southwest of France, close to where I live), to exhibit my art in different places, to find a residency too, for 3 - 5 weeks to paint in a country I don't know yet about new subjects. I will be inspired by living in this place. For the future, all I want is to continue creating, discover, and meet people and new spaces.

Finally, as we just started 2022, what are three things you would like to achieve this year?

The first thing I would like to achieve is my exhibition for the media library of Mont de Marsan in 2022. I will have a lot of liberty to exhibit my art there, so I want to enjoy it as much as possible in the different kinds of art I want to develop (landscapes, music representation, portraits, global universe feeling).
The second one is to do an art residency somewhere I don't know yet. The third one is to organize the feminist festival where I will also exhibit my art (the portraits). And besides this, I hope to paint all I can :)