LUDOVIC BONEY

My project entitled Sous les chatons consists of a dizzying sculptural installation. This project tends more towards an immersive and experiential work where the physical relationship of the viewer with the work is highlighted. This installation is a continuation of my recent solo exhibition presented at OBORO, a Montreal artist center, during which I explored the notion of passage.

 

For the exhibition Under the Kittens, it is less about the question of the passage than about investing the entire place to ensure that we find ourselves inside the work. Lately, I have been particularly interested in architecture and its “structuring” and “encompassing” characteristics to draw a parallel with natural environments. Through the installation, I try to recreate this effect of “being in”, an immersive phenomenon defined by the limits of the work.

 

For this project, the work consists of a suspension which extends throughout the gallery space. There are 15,000 ceramic birch catkins (birch flowers) which form a sort of dome inside the gallery. In fact, from the outside, the quantity of suspended objects creates a fairly massive architectural vault, while from the inside, under the installation, it is an effect of transparency, lightness and an upward movement which is seen.

 

The making of the kittens for the exhibition was separated into several stages. The kitten was first modeled by computer and the first 40 models were printed using a 3D printer. These were then molded to prepare the casting molds. 15,000 examples were cast in semi-stoneware, sandblasted, a kanthal wire was installed, then they were fired using the traditional technique used in ceramics. The kittens were eventually painted different colors: chrome, gold, magenta, cyan, yellow, orange and lime green.

 

This type of installation is very close to the concerns that I have in public art and which occupy my current artistic research. This exhibition is an opportunity to offer in a gallery a practice that I have been developing for more than ten years in public art. My latest proposals tend to combine these two approaches. 

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