Gabrielle Desmarais and Anne-Marie Rébillard: Ce qui n’est pas là

Artist list

Gabrielle Desmarais, Anne-Marie Rébillard

Gabrielle Desmarais and Anne-Marie Rébillard, two young artists who create contemporary jewellery, will exhibit their works together at Galerie Noel Guyomarc’h, from October 4 to 20, 2013. Invited one year ago to present this first showing of a new collection of brooches, rings, pendants and earrings, they favoured a single material, wood, while taking completely different and original aesthetic and conceptual approaches.

Due to its malleability; its weight – whether light or heavy; and its preciousness – for political and social reasons, this material is increasingly used in contemporary jewellery. Working in an intuitive, visceral fashion, Gabrielle Desmarais sculpts wood to create masses that are imposing yet lightweight. Because of the way in which the forms are laid out, they create places of shelter where the viewer finds groupings of small luminous stones delicately arranged in the form of a geode. The poetic and romantic power of these intriguing, seductive works stimulates the imagination. Anne-Marie Rébillard presents a reflexion on current environmental issues, on the new footprint we will leave for future anthropologists. Inspired by the powerful image of the quantities of plastic garbage we produce, Anne-Marie has given free reign to a mischievous creative urge in designing this new collection. To synthetic materials she has added beach wood, this wood rejected by Nature, juxtaposing and arranging it into small and sensual wearable sculpture.

Having graduated from the École de joaillerie de Montréal in 2010, Gabrielle Desmarais has already been awarded a number of prizes and grants. In order to pursue her training and satisfy her curiosity about jewellery as a mode of expression, she continues to attend workshops both here and abroad, including those at Alchimia, a private school based in Florence, Italy, recognized for its exceptional quality of instruction. She was selected to participate in JOYA-Barcelona, an international event devoted to jewellery, taking place this fall. Anne-Marie Rébillard studied at the École de joaillerie de Québec from 2001 to 2004. In 2007, she became a part-time teacher there, while pursuing advanced training. In 2010, she registered for Le Labo, a series of workshops devoted to research and experimentation, directed by Noel Guyomarc’h, in Montreal. In May 2013, her work was selected for two major exhibitions in Toronto. Since 2012, she has devoted herself fulltime to creating jewellery.

Noel Guyomarc’h