Nicolas
Obliques
The Obliques are an expression of emergence—the coming-into-being of objects.
They explore the boundaries between process and object, where one form ends and another begins.
The Obliques are connected, each transitioning from the final angle cut of one rod to its first assembly with the next.
This butterfly effect is invisible, yet its influence ripples across the entire assembly, resulting in an unpredictable shape that emerges gradually—inevitably shaped more and more by the evolving structure as a whole.
This continuous process is occasionally suspended at the separation points between Obliques. These pauses fix the current shape in space and time, then carry forward, moments later, the influence of the last cut into the next piece. They challenge our notion of the boundary between process and object, the latter being merely a temporary manifestation of the former. Taken together, the Obliques form a single, non-dual reality: an event-object emerging and, over a longer arc of time, vanishing again.
The Obliques invite us to question the meaning of the words we use. We find ourselves at a loss to define what we see, struggling to connect visual experience with the semantic networks of our minds. When we surrender to words too broadly defined—like the all-encompassing "sculpture"—we are prevented from confronting the question of how reality becomes itemized into discrete words and approximative concepts, and we diminish our human experience.
They explore the borders between vertical and horizontal, flat and dimensional, ordered and chaotic. They propose intermediary states and query our impulse to structure and organize.
Verticals
All Verticals are unique and hand made with care and precision
At about 50gr each, they are composed of rods of copper and tin, assembled with a welding torch. Some of the Verticals are finished with a sheet of thin japanese paper
The Research Framework of Verticals explores the relationship between humans and the physical world we are in, at scale not normally perceived by our senses
Gravity
A fragile shape floats in an improbable equilibrium. It gently wakes us up to observe it and wonder.
It invites us to be humanly aware again, and sense the gravitational field in which we bathe.
Time
Sometimes it moves. Sometimes it doesn’t. Or it looks like it, from where we stand.
One day the shape will break. It is fragile. It will take just an instant in the long journey that these billions of years old atoms of copper and tin are experiencing, on their slow way back to pure space.
Relations
Its hesitating movements follow the random whims of turbulences of the air that react to our presence and our breath. Our body heat at a distance or the sounds we do, make it vibrate very slightly, reflect our light in geometries on the walls, and unperceptively dilate its rods.
It’s mass, as light as it is, draws us closer together
Squares
Squares are suites of 5 squares in which the vertical beams are either a serie of prime number. 2, 3, 5, 7, 11
or a suite of Fibonacci 2, 3, 5, 8, 13
Fibonacci numbers are additive and predictable; you can generate any term if you know the two before it. Primes are notoriously "unpredictable" and follow no simple additive formula, requiring complex algorithms (like the Sieve of Eratosthenes) to locate.
While there are many such numbers, it is currently an unsolved problem in mathematics to determine if there are infinitely many Fibonacci primes.
Both sequences relate to deep structures in the natural world, the link between these two is the concept of Efficiency.
Fibonacci numbers provide the logic for spatial efficiency. They dictate how objects (seeds, leaves) grow and occupy space to maximize resources like light and water.
Prime numbers provide the logic for temporal efficiency. They dictate how organisms exist in time to avoid overlap, competition, or predation. For instance for the cycle of certain species of cicadas that remain underground for 13 or 17 years before emerging in massive numbers. Because 13 and 17 are prime, it is mathematically impossible for their emergence cycle to coincide with the cycle of a predator.
In essence, Fibonacci numbers represent the geometry of growth, while prime numbers represent the mathematics of survival.
Commissions, acquisitions, studio visits.
Availability depends on production, each item is unique, please get in touch. For the reasons above, there is a minimum of 2 when acquiring Obliques.