Capucine Bourcart

Artist Statement

My artistic practice involves collecting materials such as sand, lint, cat fur, and human hair from urban environments, rural travels, or domestic surroundings. I am drawn to materials that carry traces of life—natural, animal, and human—because they resonate with impermanence and transformation. Each material carries meaning. My work is inspired by my own family history. My paternal ancestors thrived in the textile industry in France, while my maternal grandparents came from more modest backgrounds. My Vietnamese grandfather was a ‘Cong Binh’ (soldier-worker) forcibly recruited by France during WWII. His story, like many others, remained invisible. Through my work, I aim to harmonize both sides of my family's disparate background, erasing boundaries between craft and fine art. Playfully exploring materials that have a voice and influence the process to determine which techniques, like felting, embroidery, or collage, best suit them is central to my approach. My artistic practice involves collecting materials such as sand, lint, cat fur, and human hair from urban environments, rural travels, or domestic surroundings. I am drawn to materials that carry traces of life—natural, animal, and human—because they resonate with impermanence and transformation. Each material carries meaning. My work is inspired by my own family history. My paternal ancestors thrived in the textile industry in France, while my maternal grandparents came from more modest backgrounds. My Vietnamese grandfather was a ‘Cong Binh’ (soldier-worker) forcibly recruited by France during WWII. His story, like many others, remained invisible. Through my work, I aim to harmonize both sides of my family's disparate background, erasing boundaries between craft and fine art. Playfully exploring materials that have a voice and influence the process to determine which techniques, like felting, embroidery, or collage, best suit them is central to my approach.

Abyssal Crescendo embodies the music the ocean can create, with its form resembling that of a guitar, thanks to the arrangement of seashells, thread made from sand, and wood—all natural elements derived from the sea. The red and cream-colored sand threads also evoke the angel of the sea, a creature from the abyss, while the deep blue color suggests the mysterious depths where many species remain undiscovered.

Bio

Capucine Bourcart, a French-Vietnamese artist based in New York City since 2006, has exhibited in galleries across the U.S. and Europe. Her work is in the collections of The Theodore Deck Museum in Colmar, France, and New York’s Museum of Motherhood. Bourcart’s work has been presented in Art on Paper and Art Wynwood, and large scale public art installations in New York City. She co-founded the collective Art Forms Us in 2020 and is a member of Art Lives Here Inc. Recent residencies, at Kino Saito, Virginia Center for the Creative Arts, and Vermont Studio Center.


www.capucinebourcart.com