Histoire d'O
Marie Khouri's bronze sculpture shaped like a water droplet is an ode to water.
Artist: Marie Khouri
Location: City Centre 1 (13737 96 Avenue)
Category: Private collection
Developer: Lark Group
Year Installed: 2014
About Histoire d’O
Made of bronze and shaped like a water droplet, Histoire d’O is an ode to water. The title plays off the sound of the French word for water (eau) as well as the sculpture’s circular cut-out, translating as “Story of Water.” Water is a symbol of purity and affects all facets of life—vegetation, land, and oxygen. The artist says, “Water is necessary to keep people’s bodies and the environment healthy and should be valued and protected as the precious resource it is. We live in such a privileged country where we have an abundance of it.” The sculpture is situated near a medical clinic and reflects the surrounding City Centre developments in its smooth, polished surface.
About the Artist
Marie Khouri has been creating public art for the past fourteen years with installations worldwide. She likes to shift from intricate, worked surfacing to very pure contemporary forms in her pursuit of danger and challenge, pushing the boundaries of herself and her medium. Her work is always site-specific, taking into account history, heritage, and community.
Khouri has led a nomadic life, uprooting from Lebanon to Spain, Canada and then France. She began her career as a language interpreter before completing her course in sculpture at the prestigious L’Ecole du Louvre in Paris. Her experience in formalism and scaling endows her work with an innate and essential structural framework and academic imprint.
She is now based in Vancouver and has earned renown for her public sculptures, such as the Canada Line Station sculpture Le Banc, shown at Vancouver Olympic Station as part of the 2011 Vancouver Biennale and permanently acquired by a collector.
Her other public artworks in Surrey are Flight of Doves and Abstract Mountains.
