Frédéric Saulou

France

The first question that one could ask oneself in front of these works could be about the notion of balance or even volumetric understanding. Beyond the use, these four new pieces thus raise a technical and symbolic question announcing my creative reflection. Indeed, my work since 2013 tends to highlight the mineral materials from buildings and heritage to give them back their nobility, to question the territory around the material, know-how, in close connection with architecture and his history.

For this new collection, I like to play on the dualities offered by the different properties of the materials used and their architectural uses, reflected in the tension and technicality between the colored, dense and heavy stone in balance with the transparent glass, thin and light. These singularities, often in opposition, therefore highlight the different attributes of each material and their use in the architectural landscape. They naturally tell a story between mineral matter, fragment of a territory or history and industrial matter transformed and brought back by man. Indeed, the pieces of stone used are scraps of semi-precious materials or forgotten architectural elements. They will be reshaped to be revealed and then sublimated by weightlessness. As for the glass, it comes from modern shaping associated with a cutting-edge technology on stone, a process developed in collaboration with glass manufactory. These two materials continue to cohabit and find themselves associated with the archetypal codes of contemporary architecture, between construction and graphic work. These materials will serve each other to be reborn, to rehabilitate. The subtle combination of materials is enhanced by discreet, even invisible means of attachment. The bonding, transparent and considerably resistant, allows the stone to be fixed to the glass without revealing any assembly system or hardware. However, manual skill was essential. The principle evokes the rehabilitation of an object, of a building by a new, added element which comes to (re)construct the object. The stones levitate as if by magic and graphically structure the whole, symbol of a strong architectural anchoring such as a contemporary renovation of materials and uses. Through this technical enigma, the works question the impact of man on matter and its environment, reconditioning as the empowerment of forms in contemporary architectural space, mastery of balance.