Trained as a painter at the Ecole supérieure d'art of Aix-en-Provence, I felt the urge early on in my practice to experiment with different techniques and materials (ceramics, terra-cotta, blown glass, wood, paper, etc.). This led me to collaborate with craftsmen and workers in various settings and environments around the world. I have always enjoyed this kind of collaboration as I admire the savoir-faire of craftsmen.

I have worked with glass blowers at the the Center of International Glass (Cirva, France), at Venini in Murano (Italy), in the region of Novy Bor (Czech Republic), as well as in Japan. Each time, I have learned from them about both traditional and state-of-the-art techniques and it inspired me to design and create new forms of blown vases.
In Gien and Desvres (France), I worked with workers in earthenware factories and reflected on how shapes relate to space and how to work with the constraints of a fragile material. Later, I was commissioned porcelain plates for the established Maison Raynaud in Limoges and I also designed fine printed bed linen for the French luxury brand D. Porthault. Working with these prestigious houses allowed me to experience with the finest techniques in their respective fields (porcelain and linens).
When I design an exhibition, I think about it as an installation which merges the boundaries between Art and decorative Arts. I seek a balance between the objects, the site, and the site's history. For instance, on the occasion of the opening day of the exhibition of the shoes that I designed for the shoemaker Robert Clergerie in Romans, I showed, at the Shoe Museum, curtain-patterned shoes alongside with a pearl and amaranth console inspired from a Turkish shoe of the thirteenth century and I wore the shoes that I designed taking inspiration from medieval motifs.

Recently, I was commissioned a chandelier made of stainless steel (that I titled The kiss of death) and a crocodile-patterned carpet for the Lab Labanque Art Centre in Béthune (France) which draws its name from the Bank of France, former occupier of the premises. Questioning the connection between Art and decorative Arts is what I try to do since 1984. As Suchan Kinoshita said : « My protean work develops itself and changes constantly with the accumulated experience. »

Now, I'm doing paintings with watercolors on wrinkled simple paper and tracing paper and then assemble them to play with different abstract patterns or copying old oil paintings as ones from Ensor and Enguerrand Quarton.
Then painting becomes sculpture :
— Deploying a wire in the exhibition's space will create a light and simple wire-structure, on which forms of colored and wrinkled tracing-paper will be pinned. I advise to preserve a sense of emptiness, to organize the material as we sew a dress, it will create a hanging sculpture or one that stands out from the wall.

For many years, in parallel to my artistic practice, I have been teaching from time to time, to both adults and children because I find it a very rewarding experience and I believe that art can have a great social impact on communities. After teaching ceramics to adults in Namibia and to children in Uruguay in the small village of Garzón, I taught painting classes in Béthune to young adults. I also taught to art students at the School of art in Marseille, after having exhibited in Windhoek (Namibia) and in Constantine (Algeria).
Marie Ducaté