His two in situ installations at the Domaine de Chaumont-sur-Loire will show new metaphors of the splendour and damage to our forests.
In the Stables Indoor Ring, a charred tree trunk spiked with knives will stretch out over a bed of red clay, whilst in the Park, a number of rope ladders will be hung from the branches of a tree as an allusion to the Baron perché by Italo Calvino.
BIOGRAPHICAL NOTES
François MÉCHAIN
FRANCE
A sculptor and photographer, François Méchain was born in Varaize in 1948. He now lives and works in Charente. Having studied at the Fine Arts Institute in Bourges, he teaches photography at the Fine Arts Institute in Saint-Etienne.
François Méchain works at the heart of nature in the line of Land Art. He produces, in situ, ephemeral sculptures by staying attentive to the history of the place, the photographic view point, the interpretation and the future of the installation. Through his lens, he fixes time in his sculptures of landscapes, born from his passion for anything to do with the land that he covers, crosses and inspects during his many travels.
“My work is a core boring into the depth of the world. The problem with my work is getting the right distance. Remember that my sculptures have also been constructed for my camera’s view finder, so that it can see them. I have always wanted to cloud the issue. People never know how to classify me: photographer, sculptor, sculptor for photography, photographer that uses his laboratory to remodel light as he would do for the earth. I like the uncertainty of this area”. Extract from the collective works of François Méchain, l’Exercice des choses, 2002.
He is represented by the Michèle Chomette Gallery, Paris, France.