French artist Émeric Chantier invites us to heighten our awareness and imagination through his animal and human and botanical sculptures. Choosing subjects that we can identify with, his work does not want to be moralistic but challenging, reflective and meditative to the intrinsic link that unites humanity's generational history with nature. Whether the viewer observes with meticulousness or in their entirety, Émeric Chantier's sculptures lead each of us to question ourselves: how do we as human position oneself in relation to nature? This proposition introduces a dialogue that's speaks to the relationship between humanity, mineral and botanical form.
Read MoreContinuing to design sculptures that are both organic and mineral. Vegetating objects forming parts of the body. Sculptures that he creates 'treating them' with miniature plants. Beautiful and strong, evoking the heart, sometimes dreamlike, the artworks by Émeric Chantier question the condition of our existence. This corpus of plant and mineral sculptures highlight the introspective feeling perceived by humanity to face the origins and the future of nature.
By immersing in model-making Émeric Chantier transcends the molding and collage techniques to explore industrial materials such as polyurethane foam, or natural elements like earth, moss and wood. Through this process, the sculptor tries to awaken the collective consciousness of humanity, with an invitation to rethink its place in the environment. It is through a dualistic vision that the artist carves and questions the consumer society with positive and hopeful, subliminal notions. In his work that is not meant to be moralising but provoking, one can experience the meditative and reflectiveness of the intrinsic link between the generational histories of humanity to nature.
'On the one hand, my work is linked to the nature and the relationship that man can have with the latter, a confrontation with our origins, an ecological awareness of the preciousness of our mother nature, the source of all life, a subject that is important to me and should, in my view, be part of a collective consciousness. On the other hand, it seems important to me not to fall into a moralising discourse, simply to illustrate the entity of the living and confront it at times with the productions of man. These sculptures take the form of anatomical parts of man or his creations that furnish his daily life so that he can identify with them without yet becoming a target. These are simple poetic narratives that must speak for themselves. It is also important to show a work of meticulousness and quality, so that the observer after reading the general form, can approach it and forget it in order to get lost in a universe swarming with life.'
–Émeric Chantier
Text courtesy A2Z Art Gallery.
