" Earth, wood, stone, pigments, wax, plaster, natural elements gleaned from nature: all of this blends, repels, scrapes, and carves, and I seek to give the material a breath of balance and silence. "
CÉCILE TISSOT
CÉCILE TISSOT
Visual artist, creator of art objects, Boulogne-Billancourt (92)
Cécile transports us into her world, revealing her desire to "restore a whisper of sacred language, which would invite the world of forms to enchant the everyday."
Tell us your story; how did you find your calling?
I have always loved expressing myself artistically, drawing, painting... coming from a family of artists, I was encouraged to do so. I first went to business school and worked in humanitarian aid, before pivoting at the age of 30 to train as a sculptor and become a professional artist, which is a vocation to be renewed every day.
How would you describe your style and your artistic approach in a few words?
I seek a direct and sensitive dialogue with raw materials, which I also set against one another. Earth, wood, stone, pigments, wax, plaster, natural elements gleaned from nature: all of these blend, repel, scrape, and carve, and I strive to give the matter a breath of balance and silence. I am engaged in a prolific body of work, fueled by the call of new discoveries, work that takes on multiple forms and formats and leads to creations expressed through various media: sculptures and installations, sometimes participatory, drawings, paintings, art objects. I try to restore a whisper of sacred language, which would invite the world of forms to enchant the everyday.
What themes or subjects inspire you the most in your work?
I am inspired by the place of art in the stirring of the soul, those little shivers that make us connect to vaster spaces. For instance, since 2005, I have been working on the theme of empty oratories, on the relationship between the void and its outline in a sacred context.
Among my inspirations, I am moved by the ability of Marian Zidaru, a contemporary Romanian sculptor, to speak of fervor through wooden installations and inhabited representations, by the physical attraction exerted by certain concave sculptures by Anish Kapoor, or by the 1900 rediscovery of Romanesque religious sculptures in the Val de Boí in Catalonia.
How do you work?
I share a space in Montreuil where I work most of the time; it is a very intimate place where I retreat. I also work in a studio in Aveyron, for periods of immersion in the heart of nature. The work comes fluidly: since I lack time to create, the studio space plunges me directly into the work. A cup of tea, some music, I immerse myself back into my notebook to pick up the work where I left off, and quickly, I get my hands into the material.
Do you have a particular technique or specific expertise? Without revealing all your secrets, have you developed your own methods and techniques?
Learning new techniques is incredibly nourishing for me. I sculpt stone and wood using the direct carving method, a technique I learned at the City of Paris Beaux-Arts workshops. I learned clay modeling by teaching it for 7 years in Paris. This year, I trained in scagliola (a mixture of plaster, glue, and pigments) and am interested in the techniques for making my own art materials, particularly colors, from pigments and natural juices extracted directly from nature.
Tell us about your daily life, your constraints, your joys, your successes…
The time spent creating in the studio is ultimately quite limited, but that makes it precious. I am at a stage of professionalizing my artistic practice, so I have a lot of work to set up and follow: administration, communication, marketing, responding to calls for projects or residencies... I also work part-time for an NGO and have time to dedicate to my family, so creative hours are counted, which creates frustration.
The joys of the moment are all the seeds planted that are starting to grow... being able to exhibit and sell my art objects through this partnership with Mirette was a joy of this end of 2023 and I am very grateful to be listed there.
A message to convey, anything else you would like to share?
At a time when art has been reduced to something "non-essential," I like to hold on to this simple and powerful quote by Dostoevsky: "beauty will save the world."
