Marie-José Gustave

Marie-José Gustave

Profile

Marie-José Gustave, is an artist of French Caribbean heritage (Guadeloupe), she has been creating works with paper for about fifteen years. A self-taught artist, her work is based on experimenting with materials and combining different craft techniques, amongst which are basket making, knitting and crocheting.

Originally from Guadeloupe, born in France and living in Quebec/Canada for more than 20 years, She creates installations and large pieces of works whose subject is interbreeding, migration and the search for identity.

From her training in clothing production, Marie-José Gustave has kept a taste for form and volume. She uses the flexibility and rigidity of paper yarn to create volumes and the stitches of knitting, crochet and braiding to play with shadows and light.Those shadows evoke preconceived ideas and how our gaze can change.

Paper thread illustrates the flexibility necessary to adapt to a new society, the universal ancestral techniques that Marie-José uses speak of transmission.

In her recent exploration, she works on the interaction of clay and paper thread with the technique of basketry. the paper thread and the clay constrain, oppose, bend, adapt to each other in the braiding process that binds them together. The result is hybrid constructions with a singular aesthetic.

Marie-José graduated with a master’s degree in apparel production in France; Her work has been exhibited in Canada, the US and Europe. She lives and works in the south shore of Montréal (Qc) Canada.

 ROOTS 1 - 2020 |Sculpture in paper thread and clay | Techniques: modelling, basketry |Size:  Height 35 cm x diameter 27 cm
FRUITS 2018 | Installation of 2 suspended works | Materials: Paper thread |Technique: basketry I Size: Total height 100 and 104 cm, diameter 25 and 31 cm
FRUITS (detail) 2018 | Installation of 2 suspended works | Materials: Paper thread |Technique: basketry I Size: Total height 100 and 104 cm, diameter 25 and 31 cm
US AND OTHERS 1 - 2015 | Wall art piece in paper yarn | Techniques: knitting and crochet | Size:  Height 38 cm to 52 cm x width 163 cm x depth 3 to 7 cm

Quebec, Canada

International

2021

Workshops: Yes 
Talks: Yes 
Commissions: Yes