In Four Lost Cities: A Secret History of the Urban Age, author Annalee Newitz writes about the Neolithic city of Çatalhöyük,
one of the world’s oldest urban areas. Newitz unravels the relationship between
personal identity and place, as well as public and private iterations of the
self. According to Newitz, prior to settling down, nomadic Homo sapiens didn’t
have a real conception of privacy. Identity was defined by one’s ancestral
lineage rather than ties to a specific location. The aesthetic and symbolic
components within the structure of this ancient city are also fascinating. Buried
in the plastered walls are the skulls, teeth and claws of wild animals, some
protruding out of the plaster and painted in bright colors. Over the course of their
inhabitation, the homes within the city were perpetually cared for and rebuilt,
each reconstruction burying the past under new layers of plaster, ash and clay.
The walls and floors of the city are like palimpsests, hiding and revealing narratives
of ancient human life.
I
find compelling visual and conceptual similarities between Marie B. Gauthiez’ installation
Self-portrait as palimpsest and Newitz’ description of Çatalhöyük. For
one, Gauthiez’ work also investigates the relationship between identity and
place, personal history and memory, using the wall as a metaphor to understand
self-hood. Not just any wall, Gauthiez’ installation evokes a living space, albeit
a deconstructed one. Additionally, Self-portrait as palimpsest
incorporates material both on the surface of and within the constructed walls. Operating
as a three-dimensional painting that references both the hard-edged clarity of geometric
abstraction and an ecstatic material glut associated with the expanded field of painting, Gauthiez’ work uses the language of
home renovation to explore how the physical boundaries that surround us can
hold up a mirror to who we are.
Gauthiez’
materials list is expansive. In her work, traditional painting elements
coincide with materials associated with home construction and interior décor. Self-portrait
as palimpsest uses drywall, wooden studs, metal gridwall panels, plaster
and latex paint aesthetically as well as contextually, and the materials are
exposed rather than hidden. Expanses of stained canvas, wallpaper and fabric curtains
create a layered, tactile (yet somehow still ephemeral) facade. Glazed ceramic shards
are tucked within the nooks and crannies and fragments of patterns and images
peer out of crumbling holes in the drywall. More often than not, the shallow windows within the piece give way to more walls underneath. Although her work does not
veer head-on into the space of performance (thinking here of Corin Hewitt’s
2013 performative installation, The Hedge, at The Museum of Contemporary
Art Cleveland, where Hewitt continued to manipulate the installation throughout
the duration of the show), Gauthiez’ work resists stillness and promotes a kind
of close, active looking, both encouraging and rewarding our efforts to look
around and through, up and down, outward and inward.
Marie B.
Gauthiez completed her MFA from American University in May 2024. Her thesis
work was recently exhibited in Surface Tension: The Visible and the Hidden
at The Katzen Museum at American University and in Threads at 52 O
Street Open Studios in Washington, DC. 👇Read the interview for more about Marie
and her upcoming projects👇 💐Thanks a million to Marie, for sharing
this peek into your mind and studio practice!!💐
⧫⧫⧫
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| Marie B. Gauthiez, Self-portrait as palimpsest, mixed media installation, 2024 Photo credit: Pete Duvall | |
1. What’s your sign? If you are astrologically inclined, feel free to give your Sun/Moon/Rising. Do you identify with the characteristics of your sign(s)?
I am Capricorn, with the moon in Sagittarius, and rising Capricorn. I have always been fascinated by astrology, but I don’t know that much about it. When I was a child, my aunt gave me a little book on Capricorns that explained all the characteristics of the sign. I poured over it, thinking it held answers to so many questions. I am practical, sensitive, ambitious, enthusiastic, persistent, and protective. One thing that comes up is the idea that within my Rising in Capricorn “you feel like something is missing, and you won’t stop searching for it”. This is uncanny because this is truly how I feel about my practice. I am actively searching through the work. I like the idea that we are ruled by those bigger bodies that are planets and that it only shows our interconnectedness to the vast universe, but I also believe in our own agency and psychological strength to redress our negative traits.
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| Marie B. Gauthiez, Self-portrait as palimpsest (detail), mixed media installation, 2024 Photo credit: Pete Duvall |
2. What is your morning routine?
I have always been amazed by the American idea of the “miracle morning”. Get up at 5 am every morning and be super productive. Sadly, it doesn’t work for me. I just have to be productive during normal sun hours! My ideal morning is tea while my kids have breakfast, shower and pack lunches, sending kids off to school with good vibes, and arriving at the studio by 9:15 am. Nothing fancy or athletic. I tried Julia Cameron’s morning pages for a while but it was just too brutal to force myself to get up early enough to write in peace.
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| Marie B. Gauthiez, Self-portrait as palimpsest (detail), mixed media installation, 2024 |
3. Have you ever cried in front of an artwork? If so, what was it?
That happened to me last week! I went to the National Portrait Gallery with two of my MFA colleagues, Pooja Campbell and Connor Gagne, and my professor Kyle Hackett. We wandered in the Fold and Self-taught Art Galleries. Connor and I stopped in front of a strange sculpture of stuffed denim pants, bucket with holes in lieu of head, torso missing, seating on a rugged wooden chair. From afar, it was unassuming. The wall text however gave it a context that made us reevaluate the work: The artist, Hawkins Bolden (1914-2005) was blinded in a childhood accident. He took to sculpting, creating scarecrow-like sentinels to protect the family’s vegetable garden. It triggered so many emotions in my heart and tears came up. I imagined this child feeling the world with his hands, building up shapes through touch but also through his visual memories. Instead of recoiling from making, he hung to his creativity with purpose: protecting. As an artist, I wonder how do you see the world through your hands? As a parent, I can only imagine the tragedy of raising a blind child, the worry, the adjustment, the loss. It was amazing to enter his world for just a little bit through those projections. I admire artists that can trigger emotional reactions and transport you instantly. It just goes to show how connected and empathetic humans are and it is a “movement” that is worth working towards. I wonder if his art should be experienced only by touch. Are we restricted by our visual sense?
Gauthiez' photo of Hawkins Bolden's Untitled, 1987
4. What are you reading now? (You can also include what you’ve read lately, as well as what you are listening to, watching, etc.)
I am reading too many books at once. Books are emotional support objects for me. I have books in different places for different activities. Amy Sillman’s collection of essays called “faux pas” is currently in the bag that I carry every day. I am enjoying her witty prose so much and I am mining the book for insight and wisdom. It is also very informative, and I am using it for the classes I teach at the Washington Studio School. It took me time to get into “The Great Believers” by Rebecca Makkai but I really enjoyed the second half. This fiction novel is about the AIDS crisis in Chicago, about chasing a hypothetical art collection and an estranged daughter. It is heavy, but essential to remember how inhumane the US were to the gay community as the disease started infecting people. The human losses were astounding, the agony implacable, the shame so thick. The novel also follows a photographer who documents the epidemic and who later becomes a super star in the art world of the 2000’s. I liked that the writer included this character as I believe artists are important witnesses of our societies and can shift mentalities through their works. I admire the bravery it demands. I just started “Wrong is not my name” by Erica N. Cardwell which weaves personal memoirs and art criticism through the works of Black artists. She explores loss and the healing powers of art through art, which really speaks to my own practice. Through her writing style, I feel very grounded in her experience. Can’t wait to read more!
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| Marie B. Gauthiez, Self-portrait as palimpsest (detail), mixed media installation, 2024 |
5. Tell us four truths about yourself and one lie:
a. I was born in France
b. I love open water scuba diving
c. Hypnosis helped me overcome my fear of driving
d. I met the Balinese healer from “Eat, Pray, Love”
e. His predictions all came true
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Marie B. Gauthiez, Wall
2, Mixed media on wood panel and metal, 2024 Photo credit: Pete Duvall |
6. This is the wild card question. You have a lot of experience teaching art to children. Has this experience impacted your personal work at all? How so?
In 2019, my friend Patricia Baca invited to me teach at her studio called Mango Street in Washington DC. It triggered a love of visual research and an interest in pedagogy. I feel it is my duty to pass on my love of art and my reverence for the process. I remember teaching a class on Louise Bourgeois to a group of elementary kids. I showed them how she drew spirals, either with a starting point from the inside or from the outside. It was a simple practice exercise. A mom later told me that her son recreated the activity for his birthday party because he was so excited about what he learned. The fact that a connection could travel all the way from Bourgeois’s own work, to how I personally responded to it, down to that kid’s birthday party amazed me. You can learn from the best teachers without even have met them. Observe the work, understand it, make it your own. More than anything, I enjoy the fact that I can talk about art with my own two children. They just want to draw like they want, what they want and when they want (aka back off mommy!). Drawing is play to them, freedom and therapy. They are unencumbered by theory and rules. I like that. They just need supplies and encouragement. We spend so much time as adult-artists wrestling with rigid voices in our heads or trying to recreate this self-generated creativity that I don’t want to force anything on them. Becoming a mom and experiencing the pandemic with two young children stuck at home helped me understand how crucial MAKING was to me and that the practice had to adjust to the environment, not the other way around. It was never about the time or the space, all those bad excuses, it was always about the will, the desire, the survival. I think about that a lot.
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Marie B. Gauthiez, Wall
Fragments, mixed media installation (in dialog with Lindsay Mueller’s drawings), 2024 Photo credit: Pete Duvall |
7. What other artist(s) would you like to see answer these questions?
Reem Bassous
Kyle Hackett
Julia Reising
Cora Olson
Patricia Baca
Not really an official question, but do you have anything else you’d like to share? Anything you’re excited about in the studio, upcoming shows, publications, events, etc.?
I am graduating this week and I am bracing myself for the unknown of the next phase, working diligently in the studio on my wall fragments – little brick-like panels that proliferate on walls- and to be working in the clay studio at LAC on new sculptural pieces for my mixed media works as well as developing thoughtful content for my classes at the Washington Studio School. I guess that is still a lot but I am excited about a less stressful schedule. Graduate school, work, family and basic self-care were a lot to juggle those past two years. Many artists have visited my studio those past two years, generously sharing their thoughts, energy with me and I am looking forward to return the favor! So if you are an artist based in or around DC and need someone to look at your work, feel free to reach out!
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| Photo credit: Taylor Sizemore |
Marie B Gauthiez is a
multi-disciplinary French-American artist who makes work about mapping
of the self, reconstruction, preservation and identity. Marie received
her MFA in Studio Art from American University (’24). She is a faculty
member at the Washington Studio School in Washington DC. Recently Marie
has co-curated an MFA invitational exhibition called ‘Holding Hands,
Holding Space” in the Katzen Center (Washington, DC). Marie has
participated in Art Night “Homegrown” at the National Gallery of Art in
2023. She was awarded the Van Swearingen Merit Award, the Catharina
Baart Biddle Award and the Carol Bird Ravenal Art Award. She has
exhibited in group shows at Soft Times Gallery (San Francisco), Studio
Gallery (Washington DC), Brentwood Arts Exchange (MD), the Anacostia
Arts Center (DC), the Katzen Art Center (DC), Blue Mountain Gallery
(NYC), Pyramid Atlantic (MD). Marie holds a BA in applied languages from
Paris 10-Nanterre and an MA in Fashion Business from ESMOD Paris. She
lives with her husband and two children in Northern Virginia.
mariebgauthiez.com
IG @mariebgauthiez
All images courtesy of the artist.
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