Creation: Margaux Othats Artist-in-Residence at La Petite Escalère
Margaux Othats has been selected for LPE’s fall 2016 residency for francophone authors-illustrators. The selection committee included Marion Jablonski, Director – Albin Michel Jeunesse, Marie-Laure Bernadac, museum curator, former head of Contemporary art at the Louvre museum and Dominique Haim, Honorary President of the non-for-profit Fiends of La Petite Escalère. In the video, Margaux makes us discover a particular area on the edge of forest, which inspired the narrative and visual development her current book.
Margaux Othats
Born in 1989, Margaux Othats grew up in the Pyrénées. After a year at the Bayonne Art School, she enters the Arts Décoratifs School in Strasbourg and graduates in June 2013 with a focus on illustration. Her first book, La Chasse (The Hunt) was published by Magnani publisher in 2014 ; it was included in the Illustrated Book Selection of the 2014 Montreuil Children’s Books Fair. Her second book, Un jour dehors (A Day Outside), also published by Magnani, will be released in April 2016. Othats has worked for newspapers and magazines (New York Times, XXI, Citrus, Kiblind). In her stories, characters are confronted with landscapes, stones become sculptures, branches become tree houses, the wind carries everything away and the rain becomes a fierce opponent. Playing with books as objects — their format, their handling, Othats’ stories, developed in minimalist drawings, are rites of passage which explore themes such as separation, tenacity or emancipation.
La Petite Escalère
The gardens of La Petite Escalère host a large collection of modern and contemporary artwork. This private site allows a unique dialogue between sculpture and nature and is dedicated to promote creation, research and exchange around and about art and landscape. Twice a year, La Petite Escalère welcomes multidisciplinary artists and researchers – visual artists, writers, illustrators, exhibition curators… – for research and creation residencies, thus offering them a privileged setting to work on ongoing or new projects. La Petite Escalère is a member of the French federation of artist residencies, Arts en résidence – Réseau National .
