Armour Leftovers, 2021, acrylic plaster, cast glass, wax, steel, aluminium, cables, variable dimensions

@RAVI Résidences-Ateliers Vivegnis International, Liège, BE

A fossilization process is associated with Gothic forms, giving them the appearance of bones frozen in time. The Gothic elements gain a natural extension to reach a new stage. The metaphor of protection for this heritage is materialized in the fusion of these vestiges with natural forms linked to defense, such as the chrysalis and the carapace. The metamorphosis of these vestiges gives them a completely different existence, while keeping a subtle influence of their architectural state. It manifests by the play of light with flaking skin reproduced in a translucent wax or with this interweaving of Gothic elements forming a shell, parallel to the protective role given to itself by the church. At the foot of the raised structures, helices evoking the chrysalis refer to movement, a metaphor for the state of transition in which these pieces find themselves. To these associations are added a series of details and references to the protective role of certain objects. The shell is, in fact, supported by hybrid objects, the result of the fusion between keys, guarantors of the security of a building, and Kubotans, self- defense pocket weapons.
RAVI Résidences-Ateliers Vivegnis International catalog - text by Thibaut Wauthion

Get rid of WORRY Fast, 2021, on going project 

EXTRAVAGANZA, 2020, acrylic plaster, steel, mineral pigment, black blown glass, chains, 340 x 108 x 80 cm (extensible).

Extravaganza comes from Ionic volutes, which represent hair rejected on both sides of a woman’s face. Here, as a duo however united, one volute is wrapped and the other grows freely as a horn, suggesting the complex attraction/rejection of human animality among genders. Considered as a protection as well as an extravagant outgrowth, a horn stays still even when removed from its living source, making it usable (horn of plenty, etc). The transformation faces a stylized volute and displaces the ambiguous iconography of the devilish towards a dominated approach of the otherness physicality in ornamentation. 

THERE’S NOTHING TO DISGUISE, 2020, acrylic plaster, fiberglass, steel, iridescent painting, 170 x 130 x 45 cm  (extensible)

In the Greek Mythology, Apollo tried to kidnap Acantha. As she scratched his face he transformed her into a spiny plant, the Acanthus, reducing her to a contemplative, unreachable thing. WIth There’s nothing to disguise, the sexualized central object of the sculpture gives birth to acanthus leaves which transforms into a fossilized shell. The global transformation suggests both a palmette shape (ornamental detail) and a spaceship shape, escaping any temporality and any social injunctions. The cuts allow a functional and adjustable display in the space giving value to different aspects of this metamorphosis. 

Love to details (WHO MEANS WELL?) @ ARTBIESENTHAL 2020, Berlin, DE

Love to details (WHO MEANS WELL?), 2019, polycristal plaster, fiberglass, steel, 460 x 90 x 70 cm (extensible)

Love to details (WHO MEANS WELL?) is the enlargement of a volute imagined on a bodily scale. It is a functional sculpture, ready for engagement as a support for performance. The cutouts deconstruct its unity, making the furniture malleable, acquiring different functions altered by its positions. To move it and to sit on it give authority over the sculpture, besiege it. Gray color highlights any dimension other than itself, and is used here to remove any ostentatious scope of the ornament. Neutrality potential allows an interpretative and physical reappropriation by any individuality of the sculpture significances. 

PROPOSITIONAL BENCH FOR HERMES AND APHRODITE, 2019, plaster, upcycled polystyrene, sound installation, 440 x 90 x 70 cm

PROPOSITIONAL BENCH FOR HERMES AND APHRODITE is an enlargement of combined elements of Corinthian capital columns - calculated on the proportions of a female body. Isolated from any architectural order, the stripped ornament reveals the generic figuration of a double spiral. Up to the French Curve, these geometric forms can be found in most civilisations and especially structured the occidental architecture. From the Mediterranean areas, normative injonctions have extended over centuries through dominant architectures. Acanthus leaves, being ultimate ornamental plants, are here floral thorny elements which spread and take hold of their support. However, spirals are inspired by gastropods or plants, often hermaphrodites, such as acanthus. 

I’VE BEEN LOOKING FOR LOVE / IN-BEIRUT, 2019, glass, leaves, cables, synthetic powders, screen, marbles, cigarette papers, steel, water - interactive installation with Max Blotas at La Maréchalerie, Versailles

I’VE BEEN LOOKING FOR LOVE is an installation realized with Max Blotas, composed of connected dynamic systems transforming in an anti-spectacular way. Ephemeral, organic materials contaminate industrial ones. The designed metabolism becomes an illusory safe space where injonctions, interdependent relationships are embodied in fragile objects. 

1280 °C / 23°C #2, black blown glass, 26 x 26 x 40 cm

Born from an unusual act of brutal cooling of the glass, 1280°C/23°C are artifacts that testify of a state very close to break. Blown glass shape worked at 1280° is immersed in water at room temperature, creating this leather aspect. 

PIÈCE D’ANGLE OU ANGLE DE PIÈCE ?, transparent blown glass, 38 x 38 x 38 cm

PIÈCE D’ANGLE OU ANGLE DE PIÈCE ? embraces the physical limit of an angular corner, a three-plans junction. By its discretion and transparency this metaphoric glass sculpture embodies the unthinkable angle, although reactivated in its universal adaptable dimension. 

ALL AROUND, MAYBE MORE OR LESS, 2018, tar, steel - in situ

ALL AROUND, MAYBE MORE OR LESS is an in-situ tar platform which duplicates an interior given surface, changing the proprieties of a soil into a stage, where any individuality could hypothetically make anything happen. It actually constitutes a centrifugal force that submits the visitor to apprehend it peripherally. By bringing inside the topology of a constructed modern platform and outdoor matter, a reversal of our attitudes to a support happens. It questions how, according to the context, an artifact is wether considered as a private or public interface. 

SUSTENTATION SURFACE (TO EXTEND), 2018, marble, zinc, 68 x 68 x 2 cm

SUSTENTATION SURFACE (TO EXTEND) is composed by four cut marble pavings, creating a hollow that represents the human sustentation surface (standing support contours) on the floor. The sculpture is activated by a body at its center, who interfere with both the sculpture and its balance. Handles allow the user or anyone else to stretch this sustentation surface : these interrelation between the body adjusting with the sculpture (and vice versa) can either be a choice or an authoritarian gesture. 

FELICITÀ 18, 2018, Palais des Beaux-Arts de Paris - laureates group exhibition

FALLS, 2018, steel, bronze and aluminium powder, variable dimensions

This modular steel composition dialogues with DRIP LINES. FALLS is a barrier installation which forces a remoteness from the body to a sculpture. It questions the bodily apprehension of what cannot be touched or experimented within an institutional space. 

-  The horizontal bar at 113 cm corresponds to the height of the gravity center (navel height), and to the average height of a ballet bar ;

-  The horizontal bar at 70 cm is the minimum height for a ballet bar, both echoing a support to which we latch on ;

-  The vertical bar rising to 230 cm refers to the average height of a human body with raised arm ;

- The bars positioned on the ground draw the range of the Japanese proportions of a half-tatami (half-body) and whole tatami (whole body).

FALLS communicates with flat surfaces of bronze and aluminum powder of 30 * 60 cm, on the ground as a footprint projection of the fall. 60 cm corresponds to the average length of a human step. 30 cm corresponds to the shaku (one foot), the old unit of Japanese length that inscribes the human body as a unit of measure, «modulator» of space. 

UNTITLED RÉCAMIER, 2017, polyester resin, fiberglass, mineral pigment blue Majorelle, 200 x 60 x 50 cm

This sculpture-object refers to the LC4 chaise longue of Le Corbusier (1928) by its shape, and to the Modulor (1943) by its dimensions. The different proportions of the architectural model that I reinjected in this form offer two possible equilibriums. The volatile Majorelle pigment opens like an imprint the potential of its positioning. Both material and shape suggest a prototype, it is given to the body as a mould. The material refers to those impermeable to human matter and the ergonomics encourages interactivity, but both always induce a discomfort when using it. Referring to the pose on a récamier (outdated domesticated object with absurd potential) UNTITLED RÉCAMIER proposes a portrait of the body experiencing it. 

EXTENTIO - MFA, 2017 - installation views

DRIP LINES, 2017, concrete, 190 x 61 x 55 cm each

DRIP LINES are three concrete modules that places the body in « micro-architectures », their dimensions are calculated on the standardized proportions of a (folded) tatami or jō (surface measurement unit). They stand like a mathematical graph gravitating in all directions we progress : the x, y and z axes. The three different positions of the sculptures offset the body gravity center of its axle by 15° : the imbalance forces a step, a loss of balance, a discomfort that causes the awareness of a reflex. 

DO CROSS THE LINE, 2017, steel, 179 x 63 x 1,5 cm

Architectural plans are fictional projections of spaces which will however induce many standards structuring social interactions and behaviors. DO CROSS THE LINE is a steel frame that draws the contours of the space in which it is shown. Reduced to the 1/10 standard scale of architectural plan drawings, this lines becomes here a perimeter proper to a body size, allowing passage and questioning what is on a human scale. 

60 cm < 2 h + g < 64 cm (STEPS), 2017, teardrop steel, 105 x 73 x 35 cm

The vertical movement of the body being more painful than the horizontal one, the Blondel’s formula institutes the dimensions of comfort for a staircase construction and is illustrated here. The addition of two steps to a stairtread (depth of the step) must necessarily be between 60 and 64 cm (length of a human step). The irregularity of 60 cm < 2 h + g < 64 cm (STEPS) results from these minimum and maximum measurements that surround this comfort zone. It distorts the traditional object by amputating it of any possible use : it questions construction on a human scale ; what makes an object practicable, or not. 

AMOUR BINAIRE, 2017, concrete, epoxy resin, 400 x 46 x 0,3 cm

Nouvelle Collection Paris - Beaux-Arts Paris. Credits : Alex Huanfa Cheng

AMOUR BINAIRE (Binary Love) is a wearable sculpture activated by two partners, an opaque link preventing them from seeing their bodies. It investigates how the human contour can be disturbed in the broadest sense, both ideologically and materially. The partners become models as pedestals for the sculpture. Movements are restricted and permitted by it, so performers have to coordinate and tame each other to move, creating a basis for new body languages. As this distance is petrified in a choreographic and ritual way, it emphasizes the awareness of one’s relationship with another. This piece is a priori lightweight but actually heavy (9 kilograms distributed over four shoulders), changing its understanding visually and physically. 

163 SQUARE METERS, 2017, zinc, LED, 130 x 130 x 1 cm - in situ

163 SQUARE METERS reduces a space to the unique plan of the floor. The indeterminate horizon, which is underlined by the light emitted from beneath the zinc plate, compresses and confuses real physical elements perceived with the part of the imaginary. If there is a body in this space, the grazing light only underlines the action of a step. Its progression is only existing though the memory of it, materializing the inconsistency of a gesture in time. 

AS LONG AS YOU CAN WALK, 2016, marble, glass, wood, steel - installation views

A 5.6 magnitude earthquake shook Tokyo when I was there. A magnitude higher than 5 on the Richter scale destabilizes the balance of the human body and its displacement. AS LONG AS YOU CAN WALK materializes through different sculptures, datas which are the arbitrary physical measurement systems that condition our approach to significant terrestrial events. These unchangeable rational datas are necessary for a bearable reality, and are material for tangibly manipulating an experience of losing sensory control. Sculptures are built with architectural materials put in situations of vulnerability, questioning reversible balance of power within spaces. 

PROFUNDITY 37 KILOMETERS, 2016, marble, 150 x 42 x 3 cm

PROFUNDITY 37 KILOMETERS, is a marble monolith rising from the ground surface of 3.7 cm.

LATITUDE 36° 13’ 60’’ N, 2016, industrial glass, 120 x 65 x 0,5 cm

LATITUDE 36° 13’ 60’’ N is an industrial glass plate curving at 36 cm from its edge.

LONGITUDE 140° 16’ 60’’ E, 2016, wood, 300 x 21 x 0,8 cm

LONGITUDE 140° 16’ 60’’ E is a wooden board curving 140 cm from its edge.

DISTANCE 59 KILOMETERS, 2016, steel, 600 x 4,5 x 4,5 cm

DISTANCE 59 KILOMETERS is a 5.9 meters curved steel bar - distance separating the earthquake’s epicenter from my position in Tokyo.

WEIGHT OF LIGHT, WEIGHT OF BLACK (IMPACT 14 CENTIMETERS), 2016, black cast glass, transparent cast glass, 60 x 40 x 6 cm

Centre International de Recherche sur le Verre et les Arts plastiques (CIRVA) - with the support of the Fondation d’Entreprise Hermès

WEIGHT OF LIGHT, WEIGHT OF BLACK (IMPACT 14 CENTIMETERS) fuses (in)compatible glasses to remove the transparency from the glass. Transparent glass lets pass and diffuses freely through it the light matter presents in the space. The black glass of the upper surface, on the contrary, concentrates it, traps it, prevents it from rising to the surface and revealing itself to a standing observer. To discover a luminous concentration one’s must lower itself to the ground, to submit to this block of glass with divergent light treatments. 

TENSION (emotion in craftsmanship), 2016, concrete, fiberglass, wood, steel, 200 x 100 x 0,4 cm 
In collaboration with Camille Raimbault

Concrete is generally apprehended by its mass, it is here dispossessed of its attributes that play with the limits of gravity. TENSION is a formwork concrete slab that reaches the maximum fineness that its industrial dimensions allow. On the verge of breaking, his integrity remains precarious. Confronted with Camille Raimbault’s work, it questions unfeasible craftsmanship and unworkable space. 

MA - BFA, 2015 - installation views

The sculptures and installations of MA confront bodily approches and hybrid understandings of design and industrial construction. Everyday materials and standardized formats are mutating and becoming unworkable. It aims to suggest fragility of materials and ambiguous submission to it. 

SUSPENSIONS, 2015, steel, in-situ

SUSPENSIONS is an in situ installation of steel bars dispersed throughout an entire space. By bowing to enter the space, as before a fight, the body submits. This proposal reverses the balance of power between the prop with a construction that threatens to collapse. Here the spacing between two stable walls defines the dimensions of each strut. Placed at different heights, these fictitious limits condition the visitor’s movements. The body is braked by the physical and vigilance efforts needed. 

BALANCE, 2015, concrete, variable dimensions

BALANCE #1 #2 #3 are three concrete columns poured into formwork tubes normally intended for construction sites. Depending on the diameter and height of the cylinder, each of them reaches the maximum degree of inclination that still allows it to remain upright, as in balance. At the edge of the fall, these concrete pillars are no longer able to support a weight. 

COMBINATION, 2015, Plexiglass, steel, 200 x 30 x 30 cm

While a staircase is motionless and statuary, it is the support of the displacement of the body. The escalator, is however initiating this movement itself. COMBINATION isolates this perpetual rotation, deprived of functionality : it is a visual fragment of a path.