Intermediaries • 2022

This set of cups, saucers and sugars is entirely handmade, in carved and superimposed sheets of goatskin parchment. This parchment carving technique was used by European luthiers in the 16th and 17th centuries. These artisans sculpted parchment rosettes to decorate the soundhole - circular opening practiced in the soundboards - of ancient musical instruments such as the harpsichord, the baroque guitar, the lute or the viola da gamba.

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Through my work "Intermediaries", I wish to revisit this secular know-how by developing a series of more personal sculptures. Going beyond its purely ornamental status in the case of the parchment rosettes that decorate ancient instruments, or when it is used as a simple support for writing or illumination, parchment, in the context of my work "Intermediaries", transcends its primary functions and then becomes a creative material of artistic expression in its own right, in the same way as earth, wood or stone.

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To my knowledge, "Intermédiaries" is the first sculpture made entirely of parchment. It was born from research around the "terpnopoietic" ornament (which provides pleasure). This reflection is based on the work of art historian Oleg Grabar and more particularly on his theory of ornament as an intermediary between the viewer and the work of art. He explains that "ornament is defined by the feeling of pleasure that one feels when looking at it. It is no longer a thing, but an emotion, a passion, an idea, which affects everything that is created by artists and craftsmen. It is a property of the work of art that transforms the viewer."

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Stemming from a variety of objects, a cup, a saucer and sugar cubes, I explore, through the use of ornamentation, this transformation of the ordinary to the extraordinary, from the object to the work of art. The ornamental, taken to its paroxysm, frees its emotional potential and questions the onlooker with regard to his relation to the object.