Behind the scenes at Majuno
Mathias Ouvrard is a plastic artist and embroiderer. Heir to his predecessors’ expertise, he is a craftsman as well as a contemporary artist.
Il vit à Quimper dans le Finistère, son travail de broderie est d’ailleurs très influencé par la tradition bigoudène. Un temps petite main, il a mis son savoir-faire au service de la haute-couture en collaborant avec Alexander Mc Queen. Curieux et inventif, Mathias applique ses connaissances du textile et de l’art du patchwork de velours au design et au mobilier.
For Majuno, he designed a tray made of velvet mosaic.
Why did you choose to craft embroidery?
I started when I was 14 years old. I was taking Breton dance classes and therefore, I had to wear a traditional costume. Progressively, I began embroidering my own costume, exclusively by hand. Besides, I never used a sewing machine to embroider. After graduating from Quimper-located Paraclet high school with an applied arts degree, I obtained another art degree –in textile design– at Duperré school, located in Paris.
Then, I embroidered accessories before working on clothing and various decorations. I fairly quickly began crafting velvet mosaic wall panels. It became my favored fabric; I am now exclusively using velvet.
How did you approach Majuno’s project?
As is often the case, I was inspired by my region’s traditional craftsmanship, especially a fabric alteration technique called quilted velvet. I like to create plays of light when crafting tone-on-tone designs, and black shades are perfect to do so.
Restraints, brittleness, crafting time:
- A 35-centimeter piece typically takes a week to be crafted.
- Silk velvet and viscose are extremely slippery materials,
- they thus need to be glued on the tray.