From the Artist

I have always adored cities and architecture.I loved growing up in Paris, visiting my grandparents’ Le Corbusier apartment, and watching Jacques Tati’s films with their playful modernism. I have gone on to live all over the world creating work from one continent to another. And, no matter where I reside, I am infused by the specificity of the architecture and culture around me. My work is inspired and fed by all the experiences and cultures I have discovered during my travels. Each time I had to reinterpret myself with my art and find new techniques and inspiration, which was challenging but so worthwhile.

Architecture endures as a strong influence on my work.Whether the buildings are a new block of offices or apartments, an abandoned warehouse, an old administrative center, or a half-demolished home, I am drawn to the history and lives they evoke.I am attracted to their intrinsic beauty, whether that beauty comes from design or degradation or a combination of the two.My latest work, inspired by my new home, Philadelphia, is an interpretation of these buildings--sometimes in detail, sometimes with a broader view. These urban landscapes impress with grand facades, patchworks of broken windows, unique color palettes, and mirrored images of sky and nearby buildings. My work evokes reflections of the lives lived within these spaces. Both finding and creating beauty in the urbanism that surrounds us, my work transmutes decay and deterioration into serenity, story, and hue.

Color and textiles have always had important roles in my work because they create impressions of light, people, and pigment.Through a modern and singular approach to engraving, I make monotypes, prints, installations, artist books, paper clothing, and paintings that play with improvisation and superimposition in their creation.My work is monochromatic, echoing traditional engraving and etching, while creating color that appears in different halftones, shades, and densities. With my individualized method and practice, I am able to create unique works that cannot be achieved with traditional approaches.As a result, I interpret and interact with the world around me through a well-honed visual language that incorporates all the continents, histories, and cultures I’ve experienced.
_{—From Brandywine Workshop and Archives records}

Agathe Bouton's Factory VII extends her Habitat & Urban Matters series and interprets North American landscapes as a vehicle for self-refection, contemplation of other lives within these spaces, and finding and making beauty around us. The printmaking process demanded that Bouton expand her characteristic subdued color palette and, instead, give way to decidedly vibrant tonal progressions.
_{—Halima Taha, fromPigment of the Soul:Visiting Artist Prints, 2019–2021(2022) exhibition catalog: https://brandywineworkshopandarchives.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/01/Pigment-of-the-Soul-catalog.pdf, accessed 4-27-2022}