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So much for the cliché of Parisian artists surveying the city rooftops from cramped garret ateliers. When artist Margaux Derhy comes to fetch me from the courtyard of a building in the lively 10th arrondissement, we take the lift down into the network of caves — the cellars where occupants of the apartments above traditionally store their wine.
Despite the lack of natural light, Derhy’s subterranean studio is cosy and inviting. The walls, floors and ceilings are coated entirely in undulating white plaster: it is far more reminiscent of fishermen’s caves found in the cliffs near Derhy’s house in Massa, Morocco — where her father is from, and where she spends the winter months — than the French capital where she was raised.
The way her working environment challenges expectations is apt. Alongside her career as an artist, Derhy, 38, is also the founder of Le Cercle de L’Art, an all-female collective that is rethinking the way artists navigate their careers.
“I want to shatter the image of the bohemian artist, disconnected from the world and economic reality.
I want to show that, on the contrary, artists are powerful, not only in their practice but also in their ideas and capacity to work.”
Artists pay a monthly subscription of around €100, gaining access to events and opportunities designed to support them in their careers, such as online forums, residencies and talks from industry professionals, art historians and — this being France — philosophers. Once a year, as part of April’s Art Month, the artists offer for sale online a portfolio of around 15 works, which buyers receive upfront but only own after paying for them in 12 monthly instalments. Members of Le Cercle are encouraged to open their studios during the month, offer small perks to their collectors (brunch at their studio, for instance, or a discount on future purchases) and share how they will use the income to develop their work (such as buying new equipment or moving into a new studio space). It’s a simple idea, but its ambition is to ease complex systemic challenges that female artists commonly face, such as isolation, irregular income and lack of confidence. Over glasses of hibiscus ginger tea, Derhy explains how studying for her masters in painting in London opened her eyes to ways in which artists could work together. Not only did students organise their own exhibitions, but simply “being among a group of 120 painters for two years, discussing painting, was an inspiration”. Returning to Paris after graduating, she did not want to lose that sense of community. “I didn’t study in France and my friends were in the UK. So that was the beginning of the idea — and then Covid happened.” The regular stipend offered by the French government to the self-employed during the initial months of lockdown was a revelation. To her and many of her peers, this relatively small measure of financial stability gave rise to an “amazing” sense of freedom. Derhy therefore decided to offer 12 works for sale on her Instagram page that could be bought in monthly instalments. Everything sold within a few hours.
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