First published: Spring 2024
Whatever surface they are rendered on, the works of artist Margot show worlds inside of worlds, fecund with organic life and departed souls
All surfaces are potential sites for Margot to engage in the process of mark-making. The act is intuitive, immersive and compulsive. She will use anything that is to hand, from deconstructed cardboard packaging – for cigarettes, biscuits, tissues, a deck of cards – to the bones of animals found outside in the vicinity of her home. A recent favourite surface for her linear interventions is old, found photographs. However, she mostly uses large sheets of high-quality drawing paper, the blank surface of which she subjects to that same careful scrutiny.
Margot at home in her studio in 2019; photo: Monique Dohogne
Her artworks – which she makes in series – are always legible from a distance, where viewers encounter large, defined forms that speak to a kind of linear, organic architecture. Up close, the work opens up into a detailed system of interrelated forms that occupy a liminal space between figuration and abstraction.
Assemblage Boîte Lotus, n.d., ink and collage on found cardboard, 16.5 x 13 in. / 41.5 x 33.5 cm
Margot was born in rural France in 1982. Although she drew a lot as a child, her love of nature initially led her to study as a florist, and for several years she ran her own florist shop. Then, in 2014, she began to draw compulsively, realising that was how she needed to use her creative energies. She dropped her birth name – which she does not like to reveal – and began to call herself Margot, as a clear recognition of the epiphany she had experienced. She says: “My theory was that this was the time to release everything that I had stored up inside for years. Often I have an image in my head of taking my hands and opening my body to help the flow of energy to come out. I had to find a means of communication. I have never been at ease in finding the right words. Drawing imposed itself on me.”
Mia Manoj Mia Koro Mia Menso, n.d., ink on paper, 78.5 x 43.5 in. / 200 x 110 cm
Margot’s creative environment is of paramount importance to the production of her work. She continues to live in the part of rural France in which she was raised, and feels a profound affinity to the soil of that place. The growth, as it were, of her artworks echoes that of the plants with which she surrounds herself, and the seasonal cycle of natural maturation, decay and rebirth. When she draws on animal bones, it is a respectful act of laying to rest of a soul. She says, “I take care of it like a relic because bones are sacred.” Her grandparents farmed this land, and she works in their house, which affords the solitude she needs to make work, and acts as a kind of focus for creative energy.
By COLIN RHODES
This is an article extract; read the full article in Raw Vision #118.
