LAURENT LE DEUNFF

The title points to the cabinet of curiosities, where objects hover between knowledge and fascination. Le Deunff’s sculptures can read as specimens: discovered yet carefully staged, as if set inside a diorama. That atmosphere is sharpened through a dialogue between two materials—real wood and fake wood—so technique becomes a tool for perception, not merely display.

A central group is carved from single tree trunks. Le Deunff works alone, by hand, starting from logs gathered in the forests around Bordeaux. He marks each trunk with charcoal, dividing it into three sections. He then begins without deciding what the next section will become. One form leads intuitively to another in sequence, creating a contemporary, studio version of the Surrealists’ cadavre exquis method. Each sculpture stacks three distinct parts, one on top of the other, uniting animals, plants, and objects in totem-like compositions.