While jewellery and leather don’t usually spring to mind as a match made in heaven, Marion’s work does just that. From her little studio in Napier, Marion translates the innate tactility of leather into avant garde pieces…
Napier’s French-born designer Marion Courtille doesn’t hold back when it comes to tackling challenges.
While jewellery and leather don’t usually spring to mind as a match made in heaven, Marion’s work does just that.
From her little studio in Napier, Marion translates the innate tactility of leather into pieces that range from gem-like decadence to intricate avant garde explorations.
Marion’s creative streak was initially recognised by her mother, who, in a desperate attempt to separate two fighting children, sent her to afternoon art classes.
Waking up in the night she’d often see her father painting in the living room and it was this quiet dedication which inspired her.
Studying cabinet making and product design at the prestigious Ecole Boulle in Paris, it was in Marion’s final year that her interest in leather assumed an integral role in her production. Interested in situating her work midway between craft and design, tradition and innovation, she knocked on the door of luxury icon Hermes. Fuelled by her instinct that her skills as a cabinet maker could be transposed onto leather to create contemporary applications, she wasn’t disappointed. Hermes was impressed and supported her design development.
With such an encouraging beginning, it probably shouldn’t surprise that Marion’s work has a sleek contemporary aesthetic. Always interested in pushing the material further, some of Marion’s pieces also explore traditional textile techniques such as knitting. Neptune, produced in 2010, is an example of this, where the designer plays with colour and laminates different leathers together to create the “yarn”.
Marion observes that her main goal is to discover new properties. “It’s really amazing to see how good the leather can adapt to different techniques,” she muses in her gorgeous broken English. “More big is the challenge, more the interest is exciting….making the leather hard and dense in order to work it as wood is one of my favourite transformations.”
Guided by her trust in her material, there is a certain organic quality in Marion’s creative approach. She says that her inspirations aren’t really “precise”, instead being formed by the sensation she feels when, for example, she admires a masterpiece. “I want to have that same feeling when I am making things. I refuse myself to have a plan when I am working…I never imagine a specific form before creating a piece of jewellery or sculpture or furniture. I trust the material, I help it through its metamorphosis but I let it go to the place it wants to”.
Recently nominated as one of France’s top ten craftspeople in the Talents d’exception – Intelligence de la main award, Marion continues to maintain a strong connection with her French roots. Living in New Zealand, she says, has taught her to appreciate time, and to utilize it with greater efficiency. “I love Paris for its effervescence, its speed, but after a while there is too many distractions,” she laughs, “which can be hard on your creative production”.
“I found the serenity I was looking for in New Zealand…being far away from your country creates a sort of magical trick which actually makes you feel closer to it. You see things in a different way, with much more wisdom and rightness.”
Perhaps it’s this distance which drives Marion’s ever-evolving work. She says her goal for 2012 is to create “haute couture” pieces, developing work that is both laborious and monumental in nature.
With her current track record, she’s sure to be up to the challenge.
Find her work at…
In New Zealand, at Statements Gallery, Napier, Cnr Tennyson & Hastings St;
In Melbourne, at Bini Gallery, 62 Smith St, Collingwood;
And in Paris (just in case), at Gallery Talents, 1, bis rue Scribe, 75009.
Head to www.marioncourtille-cuir.com and marioncourtille.blogspot.com for more information.
By Willow Sharp, 12 February 2012.
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