Elizabeth Garouste, Escapades

Overview

She says she does not know what to do with her ten fingers. And yet... For more than forty years, she has used them to bring forth an entire world of unprecedented figures, an imaginary fauna, at once vegetal and animal, with which she fills our gaze.

Elizabeth Garouste, a world of her own

She says she doesn’t know what to do with her ten fingers. And yet... For more than forty years, she has been using them to conjure up a whole world of original figures, a whole imaginary fauna, alternately plant and animal, with which she invades our gaze.

She’s known as a designer, but in reality her art transcends all categories. Elizabeth Garouste is a fully-fledged visual artist who composes with all kinds of materials and supports, playing with all kinds of shapes and colors, for the sheer pleasure of creation. Drawings, collages, paintings, sculptures, tapestries, etc., she develops a body of work with a wealth of inventiveness that is constantly renewed, particularly in the one-off pieces she creates with her own hands, as shown here.

Constantly at work, Elizabeth Garouste’s abundant graphic production takes shape in two and three dimensions, in black and white and in color. Her drawings, masks and furnishings are reminiscent of a Dubuffet-style art brut, featuring abstract shapes and characters and animals from improbable stories. His world exists nowhere else than in a poetic vision born of an inner gaze. At work, the artist claims the status of craftswoman - as a counterpoint to her production of multiples - whether she’s drawing without any prior preparation, modeling or sculpting plaster, or wielding wrought iron. Between dreams and memories of yesteryear, Elizabeth Garouste creates a very personal alchemy, creating a world of her own, free and unique, which she invites us to enter.

Philippe Piguet
Art historian and critic

Elizabeth Garouste, born in Paris in 1946, is a French artist and designer. After two years at the Camondo school in Paris, she married painter Gérard Garouste and became involved in interior design and architecture. In the 1970s, she collaborated with her husband on the construction of Le Privilège at Le Palace, the emblematic temple to fashion, music and the Parisian elite in the 1980s.

From the 1980s onwards, Elizabeth Garouste partnered with Mattia Bonetti, initially an art photographer, to form the celebrated design duo known as Garouste and Bonetti. Their innovative style, embodied in creations such as the Barbare Chair and the Prince Imperial Chair, captivated visitors, institutions, the fashion world and the media. The duo exploit materials such as wrought iron and bronze, then considered outdated, and place great emphasis on the bold use of color, breaking with the conventions of classical aesthetics. Their artistic approach fused influences from the Middle Ages, poetry and Neo-Classicism.

In 1991, Elizabeth Garouste and her husband founded the association La Source, which uses art to help children and the socially disadvantaged. After numerous exhibitions in museums in France and abroad, and works that have gone down in history, the Garouste and Bonetti duo split up in the 2000s. Since then, Elizabeth Garouste has continued her solo practice, with numerous exhibitions and commissions. This exhibition is her first with Ketabi Bourdet.