Zoé Ouvrier

Zoé Ouvrier’s screen could be seen as a contemporary take on the decorative screens that can be seen in the ScGuest bedroom at Chatsworth, for instance. However, the combination of technique, simple material and graphic imagery ensure that it becomes what she refers to as a stand-alone “engraving sculpture”, rather than a functional decorative accessory to blend in with the wallpaper. Ranging from conventional painting-scaled wall panels to massive multi-panelled works, the screens emanate a complex natural presence. Nature is her inspiration, and while she makes detailed life studies of trees and forests, the resulting images are married with her imagination to produce dream-like tree fantasies and convey her strongly held views about her on-going relationship with and place in nature:

“Plywood becomes a tree again,
Its panels the forest.
Once more, time is suspended…….
Nature is part of our history.
I draw with a knife into the wood’s veins…..

(Zoé Ouvrier, translated from the French)

Zoé’s screens and panels begin life as a simple line or atmospheric charcoal drawing. Using one simple tool to engrave the plywood, she employs traditional methods in book and scroll making, each piece the result of many hours of intensive engraving. Zoé is represented by Gallery Fumi, London.