More than 20 years
Marie-José Gustave
the whisper of the shores
More than 20 years
Sculpture
In Marie-José Gustave’s works, the memory of her grandmother’s kaz (house) is endlessly replayed, with all those newspapers pasted on the walls as wallpaper, becoming one with the history of the place, part of the family’s life. For years, her artistic practice has borrowed from the oldest and most universal techniques of women’s craft their delicacy, their suppleness, and their robustness too. Her approach is thus about matrimoine, the heritage passed down by women: a heritage present on every continent, but also within her own family. As if our artisan were imagining the gestures and skills her grandmother might have passed on to her.
“During a stay in Guadeloupe, I was deeply struck by the violence of the waves crashing against the cliffs. This natural spectacle took me back to the history of my ancestors, deported from Europe or Africa, and to that of today’s migrants, confronted with loss, uprooting and crossing. That is when I began producing a series of works inspired by corals, by the movement and the sound of water – elements both powerful and fragile, carriers of memory and metamorphosis.”
Following the whisper of the shores
