LAURENT MARTIN LO
b. 1955, FranceBorn in France, he trained as visual artist in ENSAD (Paris). For many years he worked as creative director both in advertising and fashion. His first encounter with bamboo was totally circumstantial but it was ‘love at first sight’, the artist says. Bamboo becomes his obsession, really a passion, that drove the artist to change his life. He left behind his work, house, city...to set up on his first trip to the bamboo countries. Since then he has been traveling long roads in search of the essence of bamboo. Roads which have taking him all over the world to countries that are in what the artist call ‘the bamboo belt’...an imaginary terrestrial parallel running around the tropics which, thanks to bamboo, unites far-flung peoples and connects, from Americas to Asia, diverse cultures.
He travelled to remote areas of Thailand, Laos and Vietnam where for many communities the bamboo is still the main resource. Living with them, Laurent learnt the craftsmanship and different uses of bamboo. He also discover the emotionality and millenary tradition of bamboo as well as its sensuality and spirituality. When he travelled to Central and South America, he followed the work of architects andengineers who use bamboo natural properties, flexibility and hardiness, mixed with contemporary techniques and materials. The Indonesian trip meant the integration of bamboo ́s emotional charges, the creativity and the architectural dimensions by discovering the fusion of traditional techniques with contemporary architecture.
Lo’s creative process has been mainly an evolution process. His creativity lies within his deep knowledge and understanding of bamboo. His artistic palette is within the physical and sensorial virtues of bamboo: its very sophisticated organic structure, but also its energy as well as its spirituality. Establishing an intimate dialogue with bamboo, Laurent experiments its flexibility, resistance, density, lightness, mathematics and poetry. A language that allows him to combine both tension and compression, creating sculptures based on movement and balance.
His bamboo structures swing, drawing curves and harmony in the air. With his subtle yet strong gestures, tensions and counterweights, the artist tells us about a fragile harmony that is achieved using opposites: flexibility and strength, fullness and void, light and shadow, movement and quietness. ‘Lo’ invites the spectator to begin a personal dialogue with him/herself looking for calm, serenity and the balance in nature.
Mercedes Durban Monreal
Art consultant
Courtesy Alzueta Gallery
Works at Alzueta Gallery
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