Avignon
My first studio in Avignon was located above industrial premises. Their buckets contained a large number of materials which, although in perfect condition, were destined for destruction. Here large formats – 2mx1,50m – rodoid sheets – transparent or opalescent polymer material –
In agreement with my neighbor the industrialist who supported my work, I recovered these sheets. They were the support of my creation for several years.
This is an important point of the process, recovering them, recycling them into works of art. It is about giving another life to this industry waste that we use every day and that overwhelms our environment at all.
On this subject, an event had struck and prompted me in my approach : during a walk on a beach, I had fallen in admiration at what seemed to me to be a wonderfully beautiful sea anemone that had proved to be a good banal base of plastic bags.
Great had been my disappointment, see my sadness, but I had also thought: “beauty is everywhere”
We see that everything can be sublimated. By using and recycling this material from industry, I change its destiny of polluting waste into a support of creation, a state where one’s will not want any more at all to be imperishable!
These Rodoid formats, I have explored, exploited the many and sometimes contradictory characteristics. Because they are fine, shiny, robust, tear-proof, almost imperishable, but also fragile and sensitive to scratches.
I handled, painted, cut, glued, superimposed, exposed to the sun, on the ground, rinsed them with water jet, repainted … A series presented between two plates of plexis were scarified by bolts that maintained the structure. But also, and above all, I played with them, admired their transparency, their relationship with the elements.
These leaves are beautiful materials, marvels of technology and chemistry, but in many aspects I refuse to bow to the dictatorship which their impeccable surfaces attempt to impose upon us. During all these manipulations, voluntary marks, or not, have begun to surface.
I claim these marks, scratches or other traces in gesture of resistance to this perfection, those smooth and shiny surfaces for which the real immediately becomes an intrusion.
I claim its hazards and imperfections.
Series from the Sources workshop :
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