Language underlies most of Marie MIchelle Deschamps’ works. Her main interests are the material properties of words, letters, and signs, which she often subjects it to a process of deconstruction and abstraction, using them as a space to collapse, conceal, or inhabit. For example, she has created industrially enamelled abstract sculptures involving a process generally reserved as a protective finish for consumer goods and signage. Standing blank and silent, their forms recall boxes, signs, or packaging–but they wait to be decorated or emblazoned with the text or image that would make them familiar. Similarly, she has punctuated gallery walls with almost imperceptible plaster motifs created using a scaled-up version of an erasing shield, a tool designed to erase prescribed shapes in technical and architectural drawings. These marks suggest current use of plaster as a concealer and a material to repair. In erasing physical imperfections through a template, the created forms recall traditions of fresco or stucco used as ornament and decoration in architecture. By abstracting the commonplace, the artist shifts the focus on the familiar. Somewhere between forgetting a punchline and hiding an answer, one commonplace is transposed to arguably another.

She has had solo exhibitions at venues such as Galerie Gregor Staiger in Zurich, Collective Gallery in Edinborough, and Centre d’exposition Circa in Montréal. She has had duo exhibitions at David Dale in Glasgow, CCA Glasgow, and FOFA Gallery in Montréal. Her work has been included in group exhibitions at Northern Gallery for Contemporary Art in Sunderland, Battat Contemporary in Montréal, Bastille Design Centre, Paris, and Espace Saint-Valentin in Lausanne, among others.

Courtesy of David Dale