Roy, Marjorie

Technique: Assembled photography on metal

Born in St-Isidore, New Beauce, in 1983

Marjorie grew up in a family of entrepreneurs and rapidly developed resourcefulness and taste for art by observing art expositions in their galerie and listening to her parents’ conversations with artists.

At 15, Marjorie discovered a passion for photography, which was then on film.

Unwilling to follow conventions, she created a space of freedom in order to develop her art. She goes beyond the frame of standard animal photography. The artist tells a story with geese and invent enigmatic passages. Her graphic or abstract compositions provide vivid emotions.

Just like geese who come back each year, Marjorie names her pieces with the date and time at which their creation was finalized.

Method

"To this day, her favorite themes are fantastic elements against a landscape backdrop, and she is particularly fascinated by the flight of geese. She draws from this inspiration to express movement and immediacy. Figuration takes precedence in this work, but the artist modifies her images at will, their treatment benefiting from the innumerable possibilities of digitization, which she can bring to the point of abstraction. For example, photos taken in a field near her childhood home more than five years ago enable her to digitally capture the flight of thousands of migrating geese. From original images of magical spectacles taking place in nature, she seeks to obtain an enigmatic composition, even a mysterious universe. To achieve this, she manipulates her images through superimposing and creating layers, blurred effects, subdued light, and faded colours until the result presents a lively emotion. This is the decisive moment. Sometimes natural elements are transfigured like oversized grasses revealing strange ghostly shapes rising from the horizon line. The transformed flight of geese captures and intrigues us at the same time. They are magical works. Through her photographic processing, the artist blurs reality to create illusion. The real becomes fiction. Her work speaks to us about movement, play of shadow, light and transparency, contrasts and saturations of colors, and depth of field. When she has her images printed on brushed metal, the whites reveal the streaks of the background and shimmering effects are superimposed on them, varying according to the viewpoint. Movement is highlighted, thereby linking to the symbolism of the geese and their migratory journey, evoking the passage of time… ”

© Thérèse Labbé, art historian, June 18, 2019

Awards and mentions

• 2019 - MRC de la Nouvelle-Beauce, Chaudière-Appalac Award
• 2018 - 3rd place Concours QC Exquis and Coup de cœur
• 2013 - Jury mention, Public Prize, Desjardins competition of the Marius Barbeau Museum
• 2012 - Jury mention, in the Desjardins competition of the Marius Barbeau Museum