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Durst Gallery is delighted to present Marie-Astrid Grivet\u2019s new solo exhibition. Staying true to the themes that have long informed her practice, still lifes, rocks, bodies, and staircases, the artist continues her pictorial exploration, in which forms, surfaces, and color engage in a subtle balance between abstraction and figuration.
\nThis new exhibition also marks the emergence of a more recent theme in her work: the human figure. Inspired by movement and, at times, by the world of dance, these figures encounter one another, respond to each other, and occupy the space in compositions where bodies become surfaces of expression. We sat down with the artist, who shares with us the inspirations and behind-the-scenes insights behind this new exhibition.<\/p>\n
How did you approach this exhibition? How did you approach creating the works for this exhibition? Is there a common thread running through the works?<\/strong> What influences have informed the creation of this exhibition? Is there a work in the exhibition that is particularly meaningful to you?
\n<\/strong>I really wanted this exhibition to be different from the one I did four years ago, both in terms of technique and development. We always want to evolve, and I wanted the public to discover something new in my work.
\nMaybe it wouldn\u2019t have been so difficult to simply do what I already knew how to do, to stick to my usual colors and subjects, but I wanted to shift things a little. I don\u2019t think I managed to do that with every painting, but there are some that I\u2019m really happy with, where I feel that I\u2019ve made progress.<\/p>\n
\n<\/strong>I leave room for intuition, but I\u2019m also very organized. I make sketches and think a lot about my next two or three paintings, because I don\u2019t like being caught off guard and having to wonder each day what I\u2019m going to work on.
\nSo I don\u2019t improvise completely: I think beforehand about the subjects I\u2019m going to work on. Then, the sketch also leaves room for intuition, because that\u2019s where the creative process begins.
\nMy black-and-white sketches help me think about the tonal values of the colors. Value is very important: for example, red and black have the same value, so if you photocopy them in black and white, they will both appear black, whereas yellow will come out more like a light gray.
\nOnce the sketch has been transferred onto the canvas, I make a fairly quick first pass to establish the colors and the overall harmony I\u2019m looking for. Then I leave more room for intuition: I work on the colors, materials, and textures. I ask myself whether I\u2019m going to use a denser layer of paint, a glaze, impasto, a line\u2026 At that point, I let myself be guided by what is happening on the canvas.
\nThe initial composition gives me confidence. If it\u2019s right, I know I\u2019ll be able to move forward with the colors. But if it doesn\u2019t work, and that has happened to me before, no matter how many times I change the colors, I just can\u2019t make it work.<\/p>\n
\nNot really, other than this desire to go further than what I was doing before. Maybe that\u2019s the common thread: taking one step further.
\nI\u2019m happy because these are all things I genuinely wanted to make, without forcing myself or feeling the need to add a work just to complete the exhibition. It was very important to me to paint, rather than simply produce.<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.galeriedurst.com\/\/content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/MAG_ILLUSTRES-16-1-200x300.png\")
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\n<\/strong>In this exhibition, you\u2019ll find my usual themes: still lifes, rocks, bodies, and staircases.
\nI really love rocks, their raw texture and their highly graphic forms: edges, lines, curves. The rocks I paint are generally ones I\u2019ve photographed, particularly in the Limousin region. They allow me to move towards something more abstract, less representational. It\u2019s a form of escape, but also a nod to the Limousin, which is a part of who I am.
\nAll my works are inspired by the photographs I take. I could paint staircases all the time. I love the interplay of lines and curves, but also the sense of openness and movement they create. They come from staircases I encounter, and now, amusingly, people send me photos of staircases, and some of them are fantastic.
\nStill lifes are also present because they are restful for me, not only in the sense that they help me relax, but because they allow me to construct something. For me, a still life is above all an exercise in composition. I have a large collection of images of bottles and home d\u00e9cor magazines that I use as inspiration to recompose my scenes.
\nI draw a lot of inspiration from nature. I planted cypress trees because I love vertical lines, shapes that rise upward. I planted three because they are a symbol of welcome. I also planted a quince tree so I would have quinces to paint. I find it a beautiful fruit, with an irregular, knobbly shape.
\nFinally, for some time now, I\u2019ve been exploring a more recent theme: figures, with an inspiration that sometimes draws from dance. These are figures that I want to have interact with one another. I like working with bodies as surfaces and trying, despite my style being close to abstraction, to convey the interactions between the figures. Even though they sometimes have faces that look like masks, I would like the viewer to sense, through the lines and curves, a relationship between them.<\/p>\n
\n<\/strong>There\u2019s one in particular that I\u2019m especially fond of because its inspiration came from a photography exhibition I saw at the Maison de la Photographie in Paris.
\nAt first, I thought I wouldn\u2019t go to see this artist because I didn\u2019t think I would like their work. Then I thought it would be a shame to miss it, and in the end, I discovered two or three photographs that I loved so much.
\nI created a painting based on this inspiration. I laid it down fairly quickly because I could tell it was working, even though I later had to rework a large part of the composition. In the end, it required a great deal of work.
\nThis painting is particularly meaningful to me because it depicts figures, which is something quite new for me. I love the harmony of the colors and what happens between the figures. I think it may come as a surprise: this departure from my usual work is something I stand by.<\/p>\n
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