Marie-Christine Couture

My work has always been closely linked to available materials and resources. Create worlds, impressions, forge meaning or feelings, always with what you have at hand. Like a primitive economy where abundance is born from human labor, and not the other way around. My approach is therefore not one; only the chances count - which are not really any - the resourcefulness and the boldness of a mind alert enough to deflect the continual tension between the possible and the existing. Let the dough rest in the mold of my mind, deliver it to the scents of a mood that perfumes a specific moment, simmer my art as I cook my children's meal; these activities do not oppose each other but merge. If art is not a continuum to sensitive and organic life, it is worth nothing more than a pale algorithmic rendering.

I dabbled in digital technology, after stumbling upon a few curious functions through forgotten software, opening the door to a phantasmagorical universe tailored to my metaphysical questions.
I got into photography because an old cell phone and three scraps of recycled plastic crossed paths one boring evening. I wanted poetry.
I dabbled in drawing, because the children's pencils caught my eye after five years of mothering. I needed to be ...

The artist works under the pseudonym Tobegote.
Born in 1982 in Amqui, a small Quebec town, she has lived and worked in Toulouse for 12 years. Trained in Visual Arts at UQAM in Montreal in the early 2000s, she first explored fantastic stories through collage and painting. Living in France, she turned towards digital creation and was inspired by the imagination of science fiction. She then constructed a new approach combining various poorly developed software, of which she magnifies the programming weaknesses and graphic accidents generated by random manipulations, giving the apparent pixel a form of organicity. She was then represented by Galerie 2.0 in Sofia. In the process, she applied the same digital technique to pattern design and collaborated on various staging projects, notably with Brigade A4, Les Musicophages and the French painting brand Ressources. She also created frescoes and printed wallpapers for individuals.

In 2017, Tobegote suspended her artistic work to devote herself to her family, to start again in 2022. Abandoning digital in favor of material, she has since focused on drawing and landscape painting, then on production of hand-printed wallpaper using a unique process, as part of the renovation of a historic man...