ABOUT · MARIE DERNONCOURT
A single thread.
I am French, born in Burgundy. I am now sixty, and perhaps it took me all this time to understand that my journey was not made of separate paths, but of a single thread returning again and again.
Observe. Create. Understand. Share.
A life in motion.
At fourteen, I was already saying that I wanted to be an artist. Life, however, did not lead me along a straight road.
I moved many times. I knew Burgundy, Lyon, the mountains, northern France, Flanders and then Wallonia, where I live today. The houses changed, as did the landscapes. Yet, in one way or another, I always sought the countryside, nature, silence and a place to work.
The studios changed.
Creation remained.
Learning differently.
I did not follow a long academic course. I spent some time at a school of fine arts, but my real education developed differently: through books, observation, trials, mistakes, encounters, work and a curiosity that never truly left me.
I began with figurative painting. I painted a great deal, often without showing the work. Some pieces were given away; others were abandoned, painted over or lost through successive moves.
My attention then gradually shifted towards material, reliefs, more pared-back forms, sculpture and, finally, abstraction.
SUPPORTING WITHOUT LEADING
Leaving enough space.
There have also been several professional lives within one life. I worked in different fields, but almost always with the same interest in people.
I trained in professional coaching and then in art therapy. Over time, my view of support and guidance evolved.
I increasingly doubt that anyone can be led towards a transformation decided on their behalf. I believe more in listening, presence, the environment created around a person and what can emerge when enough space is left open.
My work with older people has affected me deeply. There one encounters fragility, memory, loss, dependence and sometimes suffering, but also a humanity stripped of many appearances.
It taught me to look differently at what remains when part of everything else disappears. Perhaps this also connects with my painting.
An artistic signature cannot be decreed.
It emerges slowly.
An artistic signature.
Today I work mainly with abstraction, white, material, reliefs, the cubes I make myself, traces, thresholds, lines of tension, empty spaces and colours when they become necessary.
Without pretension, I can now recognise an artistic signature in my work. The most difficult thing for me is not finding ideas; ideas are plentiful. The most difficult thing is not becoming scattered.
Over the years, I have tried to recognise what truly returns in my work and to remain faithful to it. A signature appears when certain gestures, tensions, silences and forms cease to be occasional choices and become a language.
Kandinsky has played an important part in my journey. His way of thinking about painting beyond representation, his relationship with music, rhythm, tensions and inner necessity interested me deeply. Yet an influence has value, in my eyes, only when it helps us find our own path.
Painting and sound.
And then there is music. I compose, write songs and work with sound as a material in its own right. The further I go, the more clearly I perceive the closeness between painting and musical composition.
A form can enter like a note. A line can place the space under tension. A material can become almost percussive. White can play the role of silence.
I am not seeking to translate music into painting, nor painting into music. The two languages simply respond to one another and sometimes become part of the same enquiry.
What nature teaches me.
Nature holds an essential place in my life. I love walking, returning to the mountains, observing trees and changes in light. I tend my vegetable garden: I sow, wait and harvest. I live with my dog and my cat. I value this closeness to the living world, both plant and animal.
Observing nature teaches me a great deal. It reminds me that not everything must be controlled, that some transformations require time and that not everything needs to be filled in order to be alive. This idea eventually entered my work.
Removing without diminishing.
For a long time, I added material, colours, gestures and revisions. Today, the most difficult gesture is often the act of removing.
To remove without diminishing. To let the work breathe without producing emptiness. To resist the additional gesture simply because it might make a work more seductive.
This enquiry touches directly upon something that matters deeply to me: integrity.
I ask a great deal of my work, sometimes too much, but I prefer doubt to an ease that does not resemble me. I do not seek to produce many paintings, nor to repeat what works simply because it pleases.
I prefer a work to have a reason to exist.
SHARING SOMETHING TRUE
At sixty, I continue to learn. Paradoxically, the further I go, the less certain I am that I know. I believe this is a good thing. It requires us to keep looking.
I do not know exactly what will remain of this journey one day: a few paintings, a few compositions, texts, perhaps traces left with those with whom I shared something.
I am not particularly seeking to leave an image of myself. I would rather have passed on something true.
To create, share and pass something on; to leave behind a few traces sincere enough to continue resonating when we are no longer here.
MARIE DERNONCOURT · 2026
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