Kate McCrickard: 'New Romantics' and Marisol Jacquemot-Derode 'Ceramic Counterpoints'

About

Kate McCrickard

McCrickard adopts a catholic approach; subject and media jostle for attention in a deliberate working against repetition and a conscious looking back to an older art world where style was not the subject, and image - making was simply a way of attending to the world. In recent works, witches and phantoms creep in, based on observed figures, as the artist mingles the real with the imaginary. Works are built around McCrickard’s quartier of Belleville, Paris, that has long provided an arena for image-making, and also on walks around Leeds when visiting family in Yorkshire.

She was awarded an MA Honours Degree in Fine Art at the University of Edinburgh in 1998, and was a Director of David Krut Projects in New York. She now lives and works in Paris, continuing to write, to review, Her work is held in the British Museum, the Royal Scottish Academy, The New York Central Library and the Metropolitan Museum, the Los Angeles County Art Museum.

“My paintings are derived from sketches made after life, in transit, in a local café, a bar, in the street. Back in the studio I work up fugitive line sketches into paintings, leaving space for imagination and memory to inform choices of colour and form. The subjects may seem disparate, but these are all people displayed on different stages, sometimes busy and in action, or sometimes still.

I’m in a constant battle between abstraction and figuration; I avoid depth of field and look for the balance of an animated line drawn in paint that works like a lariat around and through passages of tone. I often think of Bonnard and his images of people who aren't really doing anything. Mine are active, but his dictum that it is not a matter of painting life, but a matter of giving life to painting – is one I hold dear.”

Marisol Jacquemot-Derode

After studying at the École du Louvre and the Marquetry Restoration School in Paris, Marisol worked in the film industry as an outfitter, before moving to Washington DC. Here she was commissioned to paint a large mural at a private property and she also sourced mid- century furniture, nourishing her interest in architecture and fostering her interior design skills.

Marisol moved to London where she began to work with sculpture and clay while raised her family. She was taught initially by Chris Bramble and now she has two kilns, one in London and a second in France, allowing her to work in both countries.

​ "Clay is a funny thing, quite like children.  It never totally does what you thought it would, so you learn to appreciate the qualities of the end result. I sometimes wonder if a vessel being a different colour, split or broken in the firing, is not ultimately the outcome the work was destined for, rather than the initial idea that I had in mind. With clay, nothing is set because it is alive. Trying to tame clay is a constant challenge and always an adventure".