Marie Khouri “My work is like a drug”

Auteur : Kris | 12-18-2010

"What I most enjoy about my work is the capacity of imagining or seeing something in my head and bringing it to life. My work is like a drug, I need to create everyday, I dream it, I think it, I breath it...The moments of intense solitude where I am alone facing the work, dismantling rebuilding searching and then there is this magic moment where everything falls into place as if the piece had always been there, under the shell..."

I spotted Marie's L5 spine bench which is a perfect mix of asymmetric shapes that create a heavy, stately balance and a real life backbone sculpture. I just love the sculpted elegance of the L5 in bronze.

Although the colour of bronze looks so cold, it is so very contemporary and isn't it clever when you change the design medium to wood that it truly does become warmer and a whole new bench all together?

This stand alone piece, all handcrafted in laminated wood, has a very striking finish that reveals the raw wood medium.  I'll just have to add this little L5 spine to my dream list!

"For this particular bench I wanted to work with the inner body. My previous work had always started from a lump of clay that I sculpted from the palm of my hand.  I then upscale the sculpture and carve it in styrofoam. We then make a mould and pour it in concrete or bronze."

I found Marie in Vancouver BC, our first Canadian sculptress, where her main workshop is at the Capilano University. Contrary to most solo artists, she enjoys the interaction with a group of artists at the school and as Marie puts it "we feed from each other..."

She is represented by the Bushlen Mowat Galery in Vancouver and also participates in various design shows such as IDS West and ICFF.

What made me choose the field of design?
"It came as a natural process and mostly from wanting to take the sculptures out from their sacrosanct environments in museums and galleries where an informed and educated public will have the access. I wanted them to exist in public spaces and therefore started doing utility sculptures that people would enjoy sitting on climbing on etc.

My artistic inspiration
"Well it is almost everything, from my experiences , my travels , what I see, let it be landscape, urban condition of a city, smells music, sounds... I am inspired by everything that surrounds us and the places where I am immersed. The willingness to innovate, to try different mediums and mostly the people and the encounters that have paved my path and allowed me to concretize some of my ambitious projects. I like to explore ideas of place and perception, nature and culture in the public realm, I like to explore the private imaginings and the public sphere, examining what is and what we project onto the world around us."

The artists that i like...
"Well like all artists, I have my educational path so we can consider the classics like Rodin, Henry Moore, Giacometti, Louise Bourgeois, but I also appreciate architects and designers like Le Corbusier, Mies Mies Van der Rohe etc....
Contemporary artists, Xavier Veilhan, jaume Plensa, Philippe Stark the Campana brothers and a few Spanish like Jaime Hayon that are really at the edge of the trendiest designs..."

What my dream home looks like
"It would be a house built by my brother in law Bernard Khoury DW5 and furnished by Eames"

My likes and dislikes in design
"I don't like things that try to look what they are not...meaning mediums that disguise another nature of material.
I prefer the purest and simplest shapes, and the true reading of the materials. Wood should look and feel like wood etc."

What i am working on now... & where i am heading...

"I have been working on a series of public seating elements... Not only available in spaces where someone is expected to see Art where it is viewed and lived by a fraction of people that have access & that have an intention to view art before experiencing .  I wanted to allow each and everyone to stumble upon sculpture to experience the surprise the unexpected ... to use the art ...( as a child I was very upset that I was not allowed to touch the sculptures that my parents exposed me to through our many trips throughout Europe Middle East etc...I used to wait patiently until my parents and the guard would have their heads turned to feel and touch the curves and the forms of the bronzes or the stones.  Why would anyone create such forms that encourage touch yet strictly prohibit it?
So anyhow these sculptures developed as pieces that I sculpted from the palm of my hand (then carved to scale while remaining in spirit with the human body). It all starts with a lump of clay..My magic..I am able to see in my head the rendering of the upscale and it happens..."

Such a talent and I would welcome an opportunity to meet someone in a park on an L5 or in my own backyard.... Why not?

Thank you Marie for sharing your innermost design secrets and inspirations with Cocotte Design. I will definitely let my children touch the sculptures on the next museum visit when the curator is not looking!

www.khouri.net