Chignon 3, 2026

Marie Thivrier  

Marie Thivrier's workshop is located in Montluçon, in Auvergne. Her career path is not linear, like her work: a bit of decorative arts in Limoges, fine arts in Tours with a diploma in interior architecture; further training afterwards, notably learning Latin calligraphy with Najib Chergui in Clermont-Ferrand, discovering engraving with Lydia Lassota and developing cardboard design with Eric Guiomar of the Bleuzen company in Paris.

Marie Thivrier is a multifaceted artist, enriching herself with several techniques, several materials, several purposes, like others before her, David Lynch, Nikki de St Phalle, etc.

Useful or futile, applied arts or visual arts, design or sculpture, drawing or illustration, these are the questions she attempts to answer through her various works.

For her, every creative act, every thought, every gesture stems from the same principle, the same inspiration, and ultimately it matters little whether it's used as a seat or hung on the wall. What counts is doing, and inventing a better world. An interior designer by training, therefore,

Marie Thivrier turned to the design and creation of cardboard furniture in 2004. Her furniture, objects, and lighting fixtures are designed with sustainable development in mind, using a material considered poor and, above all, recycled, opening up amazing possibilities for use.

And thanks to a demanding aesthetic approach, in terms of form and finish, she develops a personal style. Cardboard is a fascinating material, and since 2023, Marie has been sculpting with it. The series "But Where Was My Head?" and "Hybridizations" were launched. She explores and questions the human figure through science fiction that is no longer fiction, the future of the body, augmented or not. These figurative sculptures—heads, busts—question humanity and technology, our relationship to the world, our communication, appearances, mythologies and hybridizations, and the role of dreams in everyday life. Furthermore, after working for years in acrylic painting in a comic book-like style, following a professional internship in 1999, Marie experimented with calligraphy, particularly with early signs: cuneiform, hieroglyphs, runes, paleographic symbols, or invented scripts, such as the Bamum script. This discovery reminded her of an alphabet she invented in her adolescence, a secret code that allowed her to discreetly write whatever came to mind.

For her, it's a radical change of direction. This research is applied to different media—paper, wood, cardboard, clay—and different techniques—painting, ink, drypoint, drawing, linocut, monotype, prints…

For the first time in 2017, she illustrated Sylvie Thivrier's poems with calligraphy, with great pleasure.

Other projects will follow. Alongside these illustrations, Marie creates artist's books, leporellos, hand-sewn books, from original engravings, often labyrinths, composed with calligraphic texts or quotes and dreams mainly related to peace, living together and the condition of women.

She also leads workshops and classes in Artistic and Cultural Projects, calligraphy and engraving, visual and applied arts, as well as cardboard furniture design and creation. Learning and sharing are essential! She has been exhibiting since 1983, initially in media libraries, then in other spaces in France, Germany, and South Korea. Thanks to several galleries, her pieces have traveled abroad to Belgium, Denmark, Canada, Italy, and the United States. She also participates in numerous exhibitions and biennials, such as the Rencontres de l'Estampe Contemporaine (Contemporary Printmaking Encounters) at St. Sulpice in Paris, the Vichy Contemporary Art Biennial, and various artists' book fairs.

Bibliography

FEMININE FREQUENCIES by Yann Caudal, Noir Pérylène editions, 2018 With Sylvie Thivrier: GOURMET ALPHABET 2017, calligraphies FROM THE OPINION OF FLOWERS » 2019, engravings EARTH SPACE, 2020, calligraphies MINOTAURUS, 2021 in the form of kamishibai, engravings AND THE SHARE OF WOMEN, 2024, calligraphies, drawings and engravings THROUGH THE LABYRINTHS, 2025, engravings, children's book Calligraphies in suspension », 2021 solo calligraphies and engravings.