Marie Bortolotto brings stone and wood to a new life. She seems to have the magic touch to bring the feel, light and sense of being from the mediums she works with. Such solid materials look magical and they are decorative and functional.
Marie is part of the Eastside Culture Crawl that gets underway on Friday, November 20th to Sunday, November 22nd. Her sculptures are something to be seen and heading to The Old Foundry Building (1790 Vernon Street) will get you a front row to the work!
Check out http://www.eastsideculturecrawl.com for the entire list of sculptures partaking in the 3 day event… you can also check out the textile artists, photographers, furniture makers and more!
Marie Bortolotto is the Eastside Culture Crawl artist of the day (according to me)…
Marie Bortolotto is a sculptor living in Vancouver, BC Canada who works primarily in stone and wood to create contemporary sculptures based on simplified organic forms and poetic metaphors. She graduated from the Nova Scotia College of Art + Design, 1996, with a Bachelor of Fine Art degree focusing on sculpture and performance art. During this time, she lived and worked in Pietrasanta, Italy, a mecca for international stone sculptors and artisans. Currently, her work explores the vessel form with its multiple uses as a functional object and a ceremonial one.
Intrigued by how all life feeds on life, her hand carved vessels articulate an awareness of the responsibility of feeding beyond oneself, into the invisible realm of ancestry and memory where reverence and gratitude are evoked. Her recent mixed media works draw inspiration from Neolithic cave paintings and ancient scripts where the “line” becomes a vehicle to explore themes of transience, time and memory. She also writes poetry to express similar themes. Overall, her work is inspired by the underlying belief in the power of art to transform, renew and sustain our modern human lives.
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