Featured Artist Series
This is part of a series of blogs featuring inspiring artists and craft people who work with local natural materials.
I am a self-taught artist, who live and work in Lyon, France. I explore the world of plant-based colors and my art include works on paper, photographs and videos, as well as songs and poems. I want to create an immersive colourful experience throughout my work and pay tribute to the plants, by showing the healing beauty and fragile vibrance of the colours they give us.
"Le passage" (crossing) - Buckthorn leaves on wooden boat on sea made of red cabbage ink - Photograph 2020
"De l'encre au pigment, de la mer à la montagne" (from ink to pigment, from sea to mountain) - Madder Lake - Photograph 2020
The whole process of making inks from plants, from picking to “cooking”, is my main source of inspiration and the object of my artworks.
The ink-making process is always unique, especially when working for the first time with a certain plant. I often see it as a ritual, as a moment when I need to be firmly rooted in what I am doing. I love the sounds, the smells, and of course all the emerging colours. Sometimes unexpected colours. When the ink is ready, I love improvising with it on papers, making stains, mixing it with other natural ingredients or other inks. I also love writing the first lines of a song or poem: about my encounter with the plant, the emotions that its colours made me feel, its name, the history and traditions it carries with it.
Sophora lake pigment and wooden masher
Althea flowers and my hand
Above all, I love experimenting and creating in a very intuitive way, see what the colours have to say, and what textures I can create with them. I like to think that I am just following the energy of the ink or plant, just as I if I was letting myself go in a river’s flow. During that journey, I enjoy making mistakes and usually see them as a great opportunity to make up new things.
Besides works on papers, I also talk about the magic of natural colours and dyeing plants through photographs and videos. With the photographs, I create a whole new scenery or landscape where the plants and colours are the main subjects. In order to so, I use dyed textiles, dried plants I cooked as part of the dying process, and some natural materials I found during my walks. I imagine rituals during which I pay tribute to the plant, and to the colours they give us as gifts. Through videos, I intend to show the magical journeys of plant-based inks on paper, and their unforgivable colourful encounters. I want people to witness what happened on the paper, before the inks dried out. I believe videos can offer an immersive experience, a way of meditating with colours and traveling freely into an imaginary world.
Why do you choose to work with natural materials?
Working with natural materials is very meaningful to me. It allows me to really connect to the place I live and to the natural world, to grow roots where I live, follow the seasons and always learn new things. Nature offers unlimited possibilities, and so many opportunities to create and make up new processes, new techniques, new ways of expression. To me, it is the greatest source of inspiration, the greatest source of materials, tools, textures. Art is everywhere in nature. Sometimes we just need to take a break, look around us and appreciate the beauty of what nature offers. I think it is the very first step of the creative process. As for natural colours, they are very vibrant, powerful, full of life, even if they are supposed to be more fragile. Colours, are just like anything else; they disappear at some point. But the memories and relationships we, as human beings, build with them, last through time.
"Birth" - vegetal inks on cotton paper 40x40 cm - 2020
"Chèque en bois" - vegetal inks on check - 2020
Taking Over - Red cabbage ink on paper 70x50 cm - 2020
Where do you live and how does this influence your process of working with natural materials?
I live in Lyon, the second most populated city in France. Even if I am constantly dreaming of living and working in the countryside, close to nature, I think work needs to be done in cities. Using natural resources from the city (I find many things through the seasons) is also a way of showing that we need more nature in our urban environments. I think it is essential to make the inhabitants aware about the natural wealth of their city so they start taking care of it and asking for more: more trees, more parks, more flowers, more plants, more animals. Less cars, less concrete. More than ever, cities need to change and as an artist, I want to be part of this change and inspire others to embrace it. I am now working on two different collective garden projects in Lyon, where we just started growing dyeing plants for artistic and educational purposes.
I prefer using plants that I pick during walks in the city, in the nearby countryside or from my mother’s garden. In Lyon, I explore the city in search of dyeing plants. I can find and use Sophora Japonica flowers, buckthorn berries, pomegranate flowers, celandine, tree leaves from branches that fell down, blackberries, elderberries… I also love using edible plants and I admit I have a passion for red cabbage even though its colors are known to be very fragile to light.
I love the idea of working with plants that I already know and that I shared memories with. Behind each color there is a very special story to tell and this is also what I want to share with people. Having to follow the seasons is also very meaningful: it contributes to make the picking and ink-making or dyeing kind of unique. It teaches patience, gratefulness for what nature gives us, and allow us to grow roots where we live.
"Rêve de jardin" (Garden Dream) - Fresh Madder ink on torn piece of paper, black wallnut ink with nib pen - 2020
PlantKeepers, vegetal inks on paper (Sophora, Indigo and Wallnut), drawing with nib pen
Since last Fall, I have been working on two different series of works on paper called “Taking Over” and “Birth”. I just moved into a new workplace which allow me to work on bigger formats and I am actively looking for artistic residencies. I am also working on several songs I wrote about each plant I use. Lastly, I am working with Sustainable Art Market and developing new projects with the artists who are part of this platform.
People can follow my work on my website, gregoirefournier.com, where they can discover the current series I am working on and watch full-length videos.
You can find me on Instagram: @gregoirefournier. I am also posting on @chou.rouge, a page dedicated to the blue made out of red-cabbage (“Le Bleu du Chou Rouge”).
