Brocéliande
2022
Thierry has a unique outlook on the world.
Photographer and sculptor, for 20 years he has developed work on waste abandoned in nature. Thierry does not look at waste with the same gaze as others. He says clearly: waste has a soul. They are dangerously beautiful and they will outlive us. For him, his work is not an activist act. It is a quest that mixes opposing energies: the waste and the beautiful, death and life, the ordinary and the sacred.
When we seek to understand and enter into our imagination, we are quickly immersed in a universe where magic plays a large part. Thierry talks about his childhood in Benin. He talks about those moments when, as a child, he went with his brother to a village where shamanism was customary. It’s the memory he has of it or that he has formed and it gives him meaning in his quest: to see the hidden meaning of things. […]
We approached him for Les MétamorFoses because we were interested in his unique, meaningful, almost poetic look at waste but we weren't sure that Thierry would like to create outside of photography. He accepted because the challenge interested him. He enjoyed embarking on creating a work with these imperfect materials that, ordinarily, he would have just photographed. He loved designing and, above all, he loved creating this work with several hands with craftsmen: Emilie Martin, exceptional goldsmith, the talented craftsmen of the Philippe Hurel factory and those of the Atelier d'Offart, House which perpetuates the know-how of board wallpapers from the great manufacturers of the 18th and 19th centuries.
His work is called Brocéliande. We can say that it is a chest, Thierry prefers to evoke a temple or a setting. Marvelous on the outside thanks to a collection of pieces recovered from Christofle, Brocéliande is also a treasure on the inside. Thierry then says that Brocéliande is the island of the Druids. The ramage like a forest protects what is hidden and which must be discovered. Thierry takes us into his magical world.
It is attractive to immerse yourself in it.
Valérie Accary - Chairman of Les MétamorFoses
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Brocéliande offers a metaphorical story of our cult relationship with nature - using leftover materials, fruits of what we often produce at its expense, as an expression of the plant and mineral world.
I imagined the artwork like Calvino's traveler who, arriving at the outskirts of a city, already seeks to understand it. Then the closer he gets, the more his discoveries become questions. The discovery of the heart of the work is thought of as an unexpected response, a surprise arousing emotion, even a dream. Metaphysics often accompanying my creative reflection, the setting is also an altar, gardens, a world at the foot of which one can gather one's thoughts, entrust one's secret.
For this, in the creative process, I chose to get as close as possible to a functional sculpture thanks to the sublime materials available and the excellence of the know-how of the artisans who participate in the adventure.
June 2022
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Brocéliande
2022
Sculpture
Collection Les MétamorFoses
330 manches de couteaux en métal argenté de Christofle (décors Malmaison, Marly, America, Rubans croisés)
assemblés par Elodie Eloi,
Carton pierre de l’Atelier d’Offard réalisé à partir de chutes de papiers,
Bois medium et pieds en merisier datant de 1990 de la Maison Philippe Hurel,
Fils de laine de Bergère de France
65cm x 65cm x 97cm