Marguerite Gignoux
Muse
Textile Collage. Hand-dyed silk organza, hand stitched. 48″ X48″
Wintering
Machine stitching on linen, screen printed and painted with textile inks. 40″ X 40″
Paper Float
Mixed Media. Arches paper, line transfer drawings, vintage papers, machine stitched. 48″ X48″
Cortona Steps
Textile Collage. Hand-dyed silk organza, hand stitched. 49″h X 42″w
Scoops
Textile Collage. Hand-dyed silk organza, serigraphy on linen, hand stitched. 48″h X 40″w
Garden Pinks
Mixed Media. Oil on tissue, handmade papers, vintage book pages, silk, ink, thread machine & hand stitched on paper. 68″h X 42″w
Garden Pinks, detail
L’orangerie
Machine stitching on linen screen printed and painted with textile inks. 48″X48″
Furthermore
Textile Collage. Hand-dyed silk organza, hand stitched on linen, serigraphy. 3 pieces|each 6″h X 58″w
Furthermore, detail
ABOUT THE ARTIST
Marguerite Jay Gignoux is a textile artist based in Carrboro, NC. Gignoux creates vibrant mixed-media works, handmade books, textile collages, and installations. An active community-based artist, Gignoux has led projects with a variety of schools, museums, and healthcare centers throughout North Carolina. She has collaborated with writers and youth, publishing four picture books and producing over 20 story quilts. Projects include work with NCMA, Mint Museum, GreenHill, Duke Medical Center, Greensboro Hospice, NC Public Schools and Libraries, Elon University, Arrowmont, PWAS, and Penland School of Craft. Her portfolio of textile collages is well represented in the Fidelity Investments Corporate Collection. Wrap Your Head Around It was an interdisciplinary arts project that linked text with textiles through community action with the initial fundamental goal of making 200 hand-dyed and printed scarves with and for the cancer community.
Gignoux is represented by several North Carolina galleries and has submitted work to national and regional exhibits for over 25 years. Gignoux received a BA in English from Kenyon College and a Masters of Industrial Design in Fibers from NCSU, College of Design. She runs a summer residency art retreat program at Chateau du Pin, LoireValley, France that she established in 2004. Currently, Gignoux is exhibiting a large multi-paneled textile piece in the Collaboration-in-Craft exhibition at GreenHill Center for North Carolina Art, Greensboro, NC.
ARTIST STATEMENT
I grew up decoding my world through cloth. Long ago I learned to cut, attach, pierce, color, and repeat. I love cloth because it consistently offers me a highly sensual and sensitive field on which to play. Fabric is strong—strong enough to hold metal, quiet enough to remember a whisper, loud enough to carry a shout. Wise enough to answer in metaphor.
As a textile artist, I reside firmly in the realm of collage in which there are infinite possibilities to add and subtract shapes, colors, textures and patterns. I use the stitch as my primary drawing tool. I use fabric and paper as surfaces on which I can land ideas. Dye, ink, words, and thread are my constant companions. I take inspiration from the natural world. I listen to children. There is an enormous library of translucency found in the sky, in the land, in our dwellings, and in our daily conversations with each other. Some of the looking, some of the listening winds up in my studio.
For me, making art is both a private and public act. As a studio artist, I resonate with the quiet of long days in the solitude of my home studio; dyeing silks, printing, stitching, and building collages in both fabrics and paper. As a teaching artist, I cherish the hours spent in busy art rooms stirring up colorful ideas with the same materials—miraculously activated by the exuberance of youth. I believe making art to be essential and that it should be accessible. I teach workshops for adults, offer residencies for school-aged children, and seek out collaborative community-based projects that engage many ages and points of view. When joined by a larger circle of makers, my own ideas expand and this becomes fuel for new works.
What beautiful work, both the artist’s statement and the work itself! Thank you.