Cécile McLorin Salvant: Dekoupaj

Picture Room is pleased to present Dekoupaj, a second solo exhibition featuring works by Cécile McLorin Salvant, September 19th – November 3rd, 2024. 

See Available Works by Cécile McLorin Salvant →

Dekoupaj (Creole for decoupage) features a selection of Salvant’s drawings and embroidered works, including a new exploration in paper cutting. What began as a fix to an imperfection of a work on paper, evolved into cutting drawings into various shapes and gradually, more and more elaborate designs where sometimes the cutting precedes the drawing. Salvant’s works are instinctive and improvisatory, proceeding as she follows the movement of her hand whether that be marking the line of a pen, sewing a string of thread, or cutting the edge of a paper. The artist writes, “I discover things about myself in my works, and I find out what it is that I'm thinking about. I think through them and I dream through them.”

Cécile McLorin Salvant (b. 1989, Miami, Florida) is a composer, singer, and visual artist currently residing in New York. Born of a French mother and Haitian father, she has a passion for storytelling and finding the connections between vaudeville, blues, theater, jazz, baroque and folkloric music. Salvant won the Thelonious Monk competition in 2010. She received three consecutive Grammy Awards for Best Jazz Vocal Album for “The Window”, “Dreams and Daggers”, and “For One To Love”, and was nominated for the award in 2014 for “WomanChild”. In 2020, Salvant received the MacArthur fellowship and the Doris Duke Artist Award. Salvant released the album “Ghost Song” in March 2022 which received two Grammy Nominations. Recent musical works include “Mélusine”, an album mostly sung in French, along with Occitan, English, and Haitian Kreyòl; and "Ogresse", a musical fable in the form of a cantata that blends folk, baroque, jazz, and country.