Les sphères viennent au monde en tournant

-Gallery II-

Les sphères viennent au monde en tournant

From the (de)construction of the sphere to its essence

François Mathieu’s work is taking a new direction now, which is made up of shifts and displacements; however, his disciplinary roots are still in woodcarving, just as the dome is his favorite theme. Although he likes to play with the structural problems of creating spheres in his sculpture and makinghis solutions visible, in the exhibition, Les sphères viennent au monde en tournant, this game is hidden. The artist’s work, continually nourished by an empirical approach, reflects a transition towards searching for a pure and embodied expression of this minimal figure that inspires him so much.

Exploring the sphere and sculpting this complex form is the challenge that guides François Mathieu’s artistic path. How does he go about it? By experimenting, testing, adapting. And yet there is something new in his approach to the material, something that suggests the concept of modeling. When he started to create the sculpture L’aire d’une sphère, he met with image makers and form builders. As part of the exhibition Ce qui arrive, presented in the fall of 2021 at Galerie d’art Antoine-Sirois, Mathieu participated in a micro-residency at the Faculty of Engineering of Université de Sherbrooke. The discussions surrounding his project led him to build a handmade CNC cutting machine that frees him from the constraints of “protective clothing” that preoccupy many sculptors. The artist produced this machine to carve wood. The initiative, which could not be more low-tech, of course reflects the artist’s relationship to the object and the material. That said, François Mathieu does not yield his work to the autonomy of the machine because he dictates the speed of rotation. Kneeling in front of a mass composed of 128 wooden beams, he directs the movement. His eye follows the trace of the router in the material. He sees the precision of the cut and monitors the exactness of the notch. A dome appears.

In the exhibition, the artist places the sphere as an entity on its own, leaving out its construction. He grants it independence, allowing it to be and to exist. With L’aire d’une sphère, the mass faces the viewer, producing an experience of unusual frontality. Two bodies confront each other. Does the imposing presence of the dome’s mass take precedence over that of the viewer? While the body of the sphere creates a presence here, in the Petits lacs series, its absence dominates. From then on, the form’s imprint makes the material a work of memory and the body becomes personified. Due to this contrast, a play is set up that invites the viewer to question the essence of the sphere. How does it exist? By overlapping layers. At least, this is what Vues alternées sur un dôme alternatifsuggests. The two works exhibited are made of superimposed images that represent elements present in the artist’s studio, such as spool of threads, markers, sphere and half-sphere. The depth of the mass can be seen in the transparency of the layers, which show the form’s history through the sculptor’s gesture.

There is not only contrast in the way the sphere is embodied. If one takes a close look at the work, one may feel an aesthetic response to the skin’s poetry. While a textured skin of folds and veins makes up the concave sculptures in Petits lacs, it is a skin composed of stacked graphic layers that gives body to the photographic assembly of Vues alternées sur un dôme alternatif. As for the one that makes up the mass of L’aire d’une sphere, it consists of dark-coloured fibrous spots, having forms that evoke the cartography of a territory. These knots, emerging from the material and revealing the carnal memory of the wood, join the terrestrial and the celestial, the infinitely small to the infinitely large, leaving room for the imaginary. When the spheres come into the world by turning, they open up to a field of possibilities that gives free rein to the imagination.

The process reflects relationships among movement, presence and absence, but also between creation and being. Everything is there!

Émilie Granjon and Charlotte Olivier

Authors Biographies

Émilie Granjon, an art theorist, essayist and independent curator, has been director of the artist-run centre CIRCA since May 2016. She holds a DESS in Cultural Organization Management (2015, HEC Montréal) and a PhD in Semiology (2008, UQAM). In 2012, she produced Comprendre la symbolique alchimique (PUL: Québec), and in 2017, she and Fabienne Claire Caland were co-authors of Cinq fabricants d’univers (Nota Bene: Montréal). Three years later, the two authors wrote Miroirs, métamorphose et temps inversé on the work of Véronique La Perrière M. (Centre Sagamie, Alma). In 2017, Emilie Granjon curated the exhibition Déjouer les sens at Centre d’art Jacques-et-Michel Auger in Victoriaville, which toured Quebec in 2020-2021, and in 2019, she and Laurent Lamarche co-organized the group exhibition LUMINA at Stewart Hall Gallery in Pointe-Claire.

Charlotte Olivier holds a graduate diploma in management of cultural organizations from HEC Montréal (2020) and a bachelor’s degree in consulting and expertise in art objects and collections from the Lyon School of Art and Culture (2018). Since January 2022, she has been working as assistant director at Arprim, a print arts gallery, and has taken her first steps as an art writer, collaborating with Marilou André on her exhibition Duality of the Matrix at POPOP gallery. Charlotte Olivier is interested in conceptual art and emerging practices in visual arts.

Artist Biography

The celebration of the object and its physical presence guide François Mathieu’s work.

In his recent works, it is the sphere that most often lends itself to his studio juggling. Whether it be domes, cupolas or other round objects, his works consist in seeing what happens to the form when it unfolds in one material or scale rather than another. The result is constructive systems, adapted or not, that are less about calculation than about experimentation and play. A structural contest emerges when the material and conceptual elements are put together, to test them as well as to confirm their solidity.

 Although primarily known as a sculptor, François Mathieu is increasingly involved in photography and writing. Holding a bachelor’s degree in philosophy, another in visual arts and a master’s degree in Quebec studies, he has been making artworks for some thirty years. He has produced several public artworks in various environments, and has also exhibited his work in Canada, Mexico and Belgium. François Mathieu grew up in St-Éphrem en Beauce and now lives and works in the rural environment of St-Sylvestre de Lotbinière. 

He is represented by Galerie.a in Quebec City.

Les sphères viennent au monde en tournant is part of a trilogy of exhibitions dedicated to the research of artist François Mathieu, including Ce qui arrive at Galerie Antoine-Sirois (Sherbrooke), from November 20, 2021 to January 29, 2022, and a solo exhibition at Galerie.a (Quebec City), from May 6 to 29, 2022.

Video credit : François Mathieu

Photo credi : Jean-Michael Seminaro