Ysabel de Maisonneuve

The dance of fabrics

On the occasion of the release of Ysabel de Maisonneuve's book, "Color on the Wire", we cannot resist the pleasure of immersing ourselves in her world.

Dance has always been for Ysabel a means of expression, a meeting, perhaps because as a child she was “afraid of speaking, of taking up too much space”.

It is around the textile material that she was able to find her fulfillment. After studying at the Beaux-arts d’Angers, Ysabel deepened her exploration of the textile medium. She finds her form of language there.

Touching, palpating, caressing, shaking each of the materials allows it to absorb it.

The weave of the fabric, its lightness, its transparency come into dialogue with its entire being.

It is then that the trigger will be born, this breathing, an alchemy necessary to be able to continue.

Ysabel de Maisonneuve defines herself as an ennobler.

Inspired by long hours of observing the sea and its foam, traces on the sand, the sky and its horizon, colors, light, Ysabel will be able, thanks to her technique diverted from Shibori, to make the material speak.

Exiled for a year in Japan thanks to a scholarship from the Japan Foundation, staying with a traditional family of Japanese dyers, she discovered Shibori. Not only does she learn from the techniques, but she discovers the gestures that she makes her own.

This tradition requires three elements: water, fire and air.

Three elements synonymous with “Energy”.

From his way of practicing this technique is born a part of chance, of mystery which becomes a gift.

It is around bamboo stems brought from Japan that Ysabel, in the silence of her workshop, winds, folds, ties and dyes her silk or cotton fabrics.

Ysabel dialogue. His hands in pure tradition, with this memory of the gesture, dance, speak to the material.

These ligatures, these reserves that she creates allow her to work the fabric in three dimensions and thus reveal the light with which she plays and which gives so much soul to her works.

It is our turn then to dialogue with his work, to immerse ourselves in it, to let ourselves be enveloped by his poetry, and to let ourselves be carried away by this ocean of light.

With the kind collaboration of Ysabel de Maisonneuve