Thierry Bontridder

Thierry Bontridder is not a sculptor in the classic sense. He does not only carve, he assists the event of a meeting between elements. Far from being only punctual, the event consists of its propagation. With a preference for the movement and the light, the artist imagines compositions where everything articulates far from the centre and generates an undulatory rhythm, a dynamic strength, an animation created by the transparency or the refraction of the colour. As an engineer or a watchmaker, he assembles with a remarkable technical control, the wood, the glass, the plates of copper, titanium or steel that it beforehand shaped, bent and calibrated. The open and airy structure of its assemblies in stiff materials offers an unexpected lightness, a power of expansion, a vitality, which evokes abstract concepts: flight, rise, blooming or desire. Furthermore, the rigor of their execution, which underlies all the Thierry Bontridder's works, goes hand in hand with a poetic sensibility. His works of an uncluttered beauty inhale a harmonious serenity, a kind of introvert assurance.