Paryse’s momentum | The Press

Sometimes you write me messages that hurt.

A few weeks ago, I published a column about sisters and the immense role they can play in life and in society. The same day, I received an email from Natacha Martin.

“My sister was, for others, a star of the visual arts in Quebec, a caring and demanding teacher, a caring neighbor or a devoted friend. To me she was a world unto herself […] When she died, this part of my existence crystallized. Although I suddenly inherited a staggering number of collaborators, friends, disciples and admirers, my new role as guardian of his collection failed to lessen the waves of grief. »

Read the text “Being a sister, an underestimated state”

I quickly understood that the sister in question was Paryse Martin, a multidisciplinary artist who died of a heart complication on March 4, 2024 at the age of 64.

And that morning, I was treated to the sad reminder that sisters – even the most wonderful – are not eternal…

Paryse accompanied Natacha home when the latter “came out of the shop “. The women chatted on the phone while Natacha, who runs a landscaping company, returned home. Not every day, but close. The youngest quickly missed these conversations. Unable to speak to her sister, she started writing to her…

On August 4, for example: “I think about your last days. I kept my promise. I let you go. The insidious doubt that you might have regretted having asked me stays with me like a little annoying noise that must be ignored with all the patience of a nun before her work. I know well that suffering and immobility are not part of the list of your great passions […] You were starting to find old age cumbersome. The body of an old tank with loose parts doesn’t suit revolutionary princesses or punks, especially those who like silk gloves. This obstacle to your race towards excellence, you were not able to get around it or transform it. Welcome to common mortals… It must make a change for you! »

Natacha laughs as she reads and my eyes water.

Losing a sister, what a nightmare.

Natacha hasn’t had much time to think about it, she replies.

She had a “protection mandate” towards her sister, who had already experienced two cancers. She kept her promise while Paryse was unconscious in the hospital.

“I told him: ‘Listen, if you think you’re okay, that we can still have fun and that you’re going to be able to draw, come on! But if you’re tired of your damn trip, that’s okay. Either way, it’s you who will choose, it’s always you who choose. You’re free from the start.” »

Paryse Martin left an important body of work behind her. Sculpture, painting, illustration; she had the gift of creating fascinating pieces in which, according to Natacha, “everyone could recognize her story”. This is why his creations are found in so many private and public collections (such as those of the National Museum of Fine Arts of Quebec and the City of Montreal).

Natacha Martin inherited all the pieces that have not yet found their official place. And, again, the instructions were clear: “ [Paryse] warned me: “If you have a fire sale, lots of works will come out at the same time and it won’t be very good for keeping my memory active.” »

What Paryse Martin wanted was rather for Natacha to ensure her legacy by bringing her into more museums… and by finishing her works in progress.

When the designer passed away, she had three public art contracts in progress. The first was a reinvention of the famous Quebec ball tree. Sick, the elm had been cut down. Paryse had the idea of ​​making a sculpture recalling our interdependence with beings and nature. Carry dreams to the limit of the sky was well underway and Natacha was simply able to support the creative team in the completion of the work, inaugurated on 1^is last November.

Same thing for the public art project dedicated to the Quebec police headquarters: Natacha manages it, while the work is executed by a team well versed in the aesthetic and technical decisions already taken by Paryse.

As for the third project – a tribute to teaching for the François-de-Laval college – it is more complicated. “We have the model, we have the scan that Paryse did of my son when he was 10 years old, we have the drawings… Then, that’s it. »

For the rest, Natacha asked for help from former assistants of Paryse Martin. Thanks to Julie Gagnon and Vénétia Tsibucas, Natacha learned to make bronze.

The client is well aware: the sculpture he will receive will not be by Paryse Martin, but rather a tribute to Paryse. A tribute which will perfectly embody the philosophy of the artist, who dedicated a good part of his life to transmitting his knowledge. On May 11, Laval University – where she was a teacher – organized a commemorative event in her honor. Natacha read a letter there, from which I remember this passage…

“Rather than emphasizing her uniqueness, Paryse was looking for what she had in common with the person in front of her. She lifted up everyone she met. Profoundly free herself, she accepted our choices and our limits. She respected our free will to the point of letting us hang ourselves with all this beautiful rope she had given us, without ever tying the knot, much preferring to teach us how to make bridges, ladders or dancing ropes. »

In her life as in her death, she will have made sure to drag her sister along with her.