The art of weaving the living

the art of weaving the living

Joy in the heart, nature in vibrato and the living as an artistic exploration.

Par: Aurélie ROUTHIER

There are those who make fire of any wood and there is the one who makes art of all joys. Starting with those that the powerful nature of her island refuge, Île-d'Yeu, provides her with on a daily basis. From the poetry of the tides to daydreams under changing skies, Marie Bathellier, French visual artist, captures and explores every sliver of life. Its solids as well as its voids, its days as well as its nights. Pigments, clay, sand, seawater and rainwater: so many natural elements which are composed and characterized in such an instinctive way as mastered by plural and sensory works.

The one who claims to seize "everything that is eye-catching and heart-catching" has enraptured with delight in the stretched threads of Saudade. Like an artistic bridge hoisted over two shores of the Atlantic.

And it is at her home that the carpet-pictures were born. Meet with a demiurge of wonder who knows how to transmit the vibration that inhabits her. 

A word that defines you?

The momentum. It is life, desire, it is action. The impetus comes from oneself to reach out to others, to the world. I like support points, jumps and strides. In the momentum throb joy and freedom.

Nature is for you a playground as much as a breeding ground for inspiration and breathing. It never seems to stop upsetting you?

I spent my childhood in a watermill in Brittany in the Gulf of Morbihan. The taste of my childhood is made up of high skies, trees, flowery spaces of streams and waterfalls... Nature is a source of enchantment and immediate appeasement. The power of the landscape magnetizes me: the mountains with their ridge lines, their scree of blocks of rock, their mineral compositions. When I love a landscape, I plunge my hand into it and collect part of its body: clay, limestone, burnt wood...

Apart from what is happening before your eyes, what excites you and contaminates your work?

I love beauty in all its natural and cultural forms. My inspirations are multiple: literature, cinema, music, views on the lives of each other who commit themselves in one way or another.

Artistically speaking, I really like sculptural and architectural works: the space - volume - material work. Many artists accompany me and nourish my work: Luis Barragan, Mexican architect who uses color to shape space. Geneviève Asse, painter of light and sky blue. Bonard, Matisse, Monet, all garden and landscape lovers. Sonia Delaunay and her spiritual and colorful bustle. Tal Coat, Breton painter in love with matter and life...

What do your creations tell us?

The taste for freedom and singularity. A vibrant and living love of life. I offer works that soothe, delight and give desire, I hope. I apply myself only to pushing back the limits of the frenetic, the disastrous, the over-worrisome.

We have, at your home, in the middle of your works, a feeling of weightlessness and suspended time, what relationship do you have with time?

I'm lucky to be able to take it, this time. I like to taste its thickness. The suspension is part of my creative process: taking the time to marvel, to diffuse beauty, emotions, the attention paid to the birth of processes guided by nature. I also often leave a series to begin another and in this coming and going, each of the series feeds on the others.

How did the collaboration with Saudade come about?

If nature guides my work, human encounters energize and shake it up. When I met Christelle Rasteiro (founder of the brand) during a joint project at the La Butte Plouider hotel, I felt an immediate connection with the spirit of SAUDADE, starting with this dialogue between spaces, color and texture. The carpet object has always enchanted me because it brings the idea of softness, daydreaming, shelter...

SAUDADE and I share many values: the long time of production, the transmission of things that last, the weaving of human ties around what we produce. And finally, l'île d'Yeu and Lisbon are similar in many ways: light, the ocean, nature, the art of enjoying life.

And the SAUDADE x Marie Bathellier carpet-pictures were born.

The carpet-pictures that I imagined are composed of solid colors evoking the earth, the sea and the sun: three essential elements. The color fields rub juxtapose in a minimalist spirit, with a density that only artisanal weaving allows. Through this contemporary story, each of the landscapes invites itself into our homes, onto our walls. These are exterior horizons that soothe us inside, make us vibrate and dream.

Recycling is at the heart of your approach. Beyond the aesthetics of these new objects reborn in your hands, what message are you sending?

I have since childhood collected, transformed, created. Irrepressibly. I continue today to seize everything that jumps out at me and within reach. At the moment, I am working on a pictorial series whose material is a tent from the 70s. It has housed nearly fifty summers of camping. The color of its blue canvas is dazzling. Its marked patina - marbled by the UV rays of the sun and the moon already tells so many things... What exists can be exceptional!

You say that your house is in constant transformation, should our interiors be alive according to you?

I like natural materials, vectors of emotions. I use them and place them everywhere around us. I like that home is both soothing and stimulating. By offering a rug or a work of art, we offer a piece that changes the atmosphere of a place.

Your carpet flies away, where does it take you?

A few weeks in artistic residency in Japan!

Rug lady or mother cushions?

Rug lady! I like this space of delimited softness, sensual and warm. It is both a bird's eye view of a composition and a painting that you can caress with your eyes. We could live in a totally empty house with a rug, a painting and a vase to fill each week with wild flowers.

Finally, the Saudadian question: what object in your house would best incarnate the idea of the Saudade?

More than an object, it is the host of sweet, joyful and so present memories of our family years with our children. It is in the immaterial that we find the ultimate Saudade!

THE SOUTHERN SUN IN A PARISIAN COCOON
Sua Casa THE SOUTHERN SUN IN A PARISIAN COCOON
A house in Lisbon, like a summer dream.
Sua Casa A house in Lisbon, like a summer dream.
The eye of the artist, the hand of the craftsman.
Sustainable friends The eye of the artist, the hand of the craftsman.
  • Aurélie ROUTHIER
  • Tags: portugal, algarve, lagos, vacation, summer, guide, travel, sun, experience, beach, restaurant, hotel, south

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