Checking In with Marion Delarue

A lot more than 100 international artists used for this year’s Young Artist Award. Marion Delarue was picked out as 1 of the finalists. She obtained an unrestricted money award of US$1,000 and will show her do the job in Platina’s booth at Schmuck, in July 2022. Her operate signifies a team of fantastic pieces of modern jewellery. We asked her to convey to us a bit about her track record and ideas on the potential of the artwork jewelry subject. Hers is the 3rd of our interviews with the honorees. (Examine the interview with Youthful Artist Award winner Mallory Weston right here. Our job interview with finalist Taisha Carrington is in this article.)

AJF’s Youthful Artist Award acknowledges promise, innovation, and individuality, advancing the professions of growing artists. The opposition was open to makers of wearable art age 35 and less than who are not at this time enrolled in a skilled instruction method. Judging was centered on originality, depth of notion, and high-quality of craftsmanship. This year’s jurors ended up 2020 AJF Artist Award winner MJ Tyson (US) collector and gallerist Karen Rotenberg (US) and educator and curator Chequita Nahar (The Netherlands).

Bonnie Levine: How did you develop into interested in jewellery? What conjures up your operate?  

Marion Delarue: I have generally been a terrific supporter of objects, but jewelry was really specific. When I turned 15, I dreamt I would 1 working day attend the École Supérieure des Arts Décoratifs de Strasbourg (today called Listen to), which was the only French graduate artwork faculty to have a master’s degree in modern day jewellery. (The École Nationale Supérieure d’Art de Limoges now also runs these a software.)

Funnily ample, the moment I was admitted, I questioned regardless of whether I needed to be a part of the ceramics department to grow to be a sculptress alternatively. But quite immediately I observed making use of a person one substance very discouraging. On leading of that, I felt I could not fork out as a lot awareness to facts as I wished, specified the sizing of the is effective.

I before long returned to my 1st appreciate. Led by Sophie Hanagarth and Florence Lehmann, the modern day jewelry section was a great fit: a conceptual technique, great independence, and infinite experimentations. We also had limitless access to all the other workshops, these as ceramics, glass, wood, and so on. This was actually significant to me as I was—already at that time—avoiding steel function, mainly because I had no affinity with the material (unless of course it is steel that doesn’t get together with me?) and appreciated selecting the resources most fitting for each individual piece.

What does being a finalist mean for you? Will it impact you heading forward?

Marion Delarue: Staying a finalist suggests a whole lot to me. I truly feel definitely honored. I have been making use of for 10 years, considering the fact that I was a university student. I’ve saved an eye on the opposition. This calendar year was my previous likelihood to use!

I hope that staying a finalist will be a stepping-stone to a extensive-lasting romance with the US art jewellery subject. (I visited for the first time in 2019, as section of NYCJW, and I unquestionably beloved it!)

Convey to us about the operate you utilized with.  

Marion Delarue: My perform typically results in confusion among authenticity and imitation, nature and artifice, referencing simulacrum, false pretenses, and lures.

The two projects I utilized with illustrate this notion in distinctive strategies.

The first undertaking is the hottest piece from my sequence Parrot Devotees. The concept of artifice and duplicity is embodied in this article as a result of the quite picture of the parrot. “Every human currently being has a parrot on his shoulder (…),” explained Cocteau about imitation.

A barnyard fowl swoons with admiration and jealousy around a parrot: the incredibly lovely fowl enjoys a exclusive intimacy with its learn, whose shoulder he perches on to converse. In a need to go them selves off as the parrot, the poultry birds manage on their own and place with each other their most attractive feathers to re-make the illusion of his existence.

The 2nd undertaking is the fruit of investigate accomplished even though I was in an artist residency at Villa Kujoyama, in Japan, in 2019. For the duration of the Edo interval, Japanese ladies utilised quite distinct objects to assistance their imposing hairstyles: Kushis (combs), Kogais (hair sticks), and Kanzashis (hairpins), whose utilitarian functionality lessened until eventually they became purely decorative. All through my 6-thirty day period residency in Kyoto—the coronary heart of refinement in the arts and the cradle of hair accessories—I strived to determine the singularities and specificities of these excellent objects, concentrating on the most characteristic excellent: the decoration.

This series has been conceived from bone, wooden, shell, stone, and horse hoof. These are materials of organic origin usually made use of for building Japanese hair ornaments. (I excluded ivory, coral, and turtle shell for ethical and regulatory good reasons.) The goal is to research inside of these “raw materials” for decorative features inherent to them, to harness their “natural patterns” and their unconventional chromatic shades: to expose the surprising in the familiar. Participating in with the confusion involving the pure and the decorative, the parts build ambiguity and destabilize the viewer.

What excites you about the artwork jewellery subject?   

Marion Delarue: Since the subject is so niche, just about every task you operate promptly gets intercontinental. Your jewellery friends normally arrive from all all over the entire world and you need to have to journey to show up at the situations committed to the discipline. You wouldn’t do much, functioning only in your possess country (particularly in France, wherever the scene is mostly below-represented). Funnily more than enough, irrespective of, or rather due to the fact of its size, the playing floor is huge!

Also, I am fascinated by the diversity of supplies and procedures applied, as well as the creativity I encounter each day. You can never ever get bored. I believe this is rather exceptional.

Any frustrations that you see or have expert?  

Marion Delarue: I desire there have been more theorists and artwork critics specialised in the area. I am persuaded that they could turn out to be an essential facet in the process of questioning and comprehending artwork jewellery. They would certainly considerably assistance the growth and the vigor of the discipline.

Wherever do you imagine the art jewelry area is going? Do you see new and enjoyable traits?

Marion Delarue: I have the experience that its publicity and recognition are escalating year just after year, thanks to prizes this kind of as this one particular. Guaranteed, there is continue to education and learning to be completed, and I hope the basic community will be sensitized to this area like it is to other art fields. But I assume we are on the appropriate monitor!

If you could create a master prepare for your exercise, in which would you like to be 5 a long time from now?

Marion Delarue: This will most likely audio both terribly pretentious and ludicrous if none of this occurs, but let’s give it a consider.

I hope to have my own studio in the countryside all around Paris, entirely equipped with complicated machines within, and two longhaired goats, a puppy, a duck pond, and, very last but not least, fruit trees at the doorstep. I hope I’ll get a prospect to operate once again in Japan, a country which I identified unbelievably inspiring. I hope to have an possibility to go back to New York to study or to show. I hope I’ll be aspect of artist residencies all around Europe, notably in Sweden and in the Netherlands, which I have frequented couple of periods and in which I met outstanding persons. I mainly hope not to glance preposterous in 2027.