Maison et Objet 2016 News – Sylvie Guyomard, Materials and Textures

The visual artist, mosaicist, painter and sculptor, Sylvie Guyomard will be one of the most anticipated attendance at Maison & Objet Paris 2016, that will take place in Paris from Januray 22 to 26.

Silvie Gyomard’s approach is centred on the material itself: she takes her materials and makes them sublime, guided by an underlying theme of nature and a quest for light.

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There was a time when it was marble mosaics; then came slate and now metal. This gradual shift in her choice of material characterises the evolutions in Sylvie Guyomard’s creative approach. This visual artist, mosaicist, painter and sculptor, who was born in 1964 and graduated from the Ecole nationale supérieure des Beaux-Arts de Paris, where she majored in painting and mural art, invents abstract landscapes. Her surfaces are made to be contemplated, encouraging “spectators to take on an active role and use their imagination to take possession of her work.”

After working as the assistant of the painter and sculptor Louis Cane, a member of the Supports Surfaces art movement, for 15 years, she found her own path with the creation of marble mosaic frescos. Her admiration for the painter Pierre Soulages and his work on the reflection of light from black surfaces led her to use slate, a mineral material whose palette goes from light grey to the purest black. Her guiding theme is to be found in the telluric expressions of nature’s effervescence: volcanic eruptions, the flow of magma, the movement of tectonic plates, dislocated geological strata and sedimentary rocks that contain the entire history of the Earth.

The poetic use of minerals on this imaginary journey to the centre of the earth aims to extract light’s perpetual movement that lies at the very heart of all matter. “I carve and sculpt the fragments of slate one by one to create areas of roughness, vibrations and a play of light. Slate can reflect or absorb light: iridescence and contrasting blacks make you forget that it is slate. I use black pigment to make the joints invisible so the eye moves smoothly over the material.” Light becomes matter. At one time, Sylvie Guyomard dreamt of becoming a decorator, now leading interior designers come knocking on her door to commission unique, monumental pieces for prestigious private projects from Moscow to Saint-Tropez, via Val d’Isère.

But her research doesn’t stop there. “I have very gradually moved from slate to metal. I look for pieces that have a story to tell. I am fascinated by the traces left by time on materials”, she says. She collects sheets of metal and barrels that have been oxidised by nature and the passage of time, or cuts up wartime army trucks with a laser. “I oxidise the metal to attack the material. I am also interested in the effects of rust, which decomposes metal and transforms it into a fragile lace-like material. I also superpose different materials.” And it is precisely such works, the marriage of slate and metal, which we will be able to discover next January. “And what comes next? Well I’d like to take some time out to paint to recharge my batteries.”

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