Daniel Dewar & Grégory Gicquel
Born respectively in 1976 in the Forest of Dean (United Kingdom) and in 1975 in St Brieuc (France), Daniel Dewar and Grégory Gicquel live and work in Paris.
They both graduated from l’Ecole Régionale des Beaux-Arts, Rennes, in 2000.
They are represented by la Galerie Loevenbruck (Paris).
Statement
Since the early 2000s, Daniel Dewar and Grégory Gicquel have indulged in the joys of sculpture, an artistic field that has been heavily and historically referenced but a field in which they take great pleasure in renewing the parameters and altering boundaries. Their hands-on approach can be characterized by an inventive and unbridled formalism based on experimentation using a range of materials with a variety of qualities. Whether dealing with familiar or exotic figurative subjects, the appearance of their falsely heroic and oftentimes trivial oeuvres can be said to flirt with academicism and rely upon traditional gestures, techniques and know-how such as direct carving and modelling, re-worked in an unprecedented and unique fashion. The pair can be said to reinvent the conditions of existence of sculpture: examples of this include the extremely large format tapestry (Mammoth and Poodle, 2010), annealing pieces of found ceramics at very high temperatures (Mixed Ceramics, 2011), or manufacturing a life-size sports car in marble (Mason Massacre, 2008). Their work blurs the hierarchies between art, craft and industry. A penchant for excess may be seen in many of their creations which can be characterized by their disturbing monumentality, particularly in terms of their sculptural works designed for exterior locations. The artists relocate their studio to the great outdoors in order to create what may be referred to as “Figurative Land Art”.
The Minuet, 2012
Animated Gif
Colors, mute, 3 secondes loop
Edition 3/3
Acquisition in 2012
For Minuet, the artists shaped a large mass or mound of clay found in the wild and sculpted into it a series of forms representing the lower part of the male body (from above the stomach to the feet), in the process of performing a minuet (dance step). The choreographic elegance is in direct contrast with the rough or raw aspect of the sculpture, which is left as unfinished. Le Menuet exists therefore as an animated video or GIF projection, a three-second loop consisting of a succession of seven photographs of the sculpture which give the illusion of movement. This movement is perpetual as the video is projected in a loop. Through their use of stop-motion, Dewar and Gicquel extend their reflection on the practice of sculpture, showing the different stages in the evolution of a form in nature, which can only be accessed via the intervention of the image. Inspired by a taste for the “non finito”, this playful tableau vivant imagines animated GIF photography as a possible completion or culmination of sculpture.