The crucified
The Divine Human Destiny
Cherry wood, 18th-century oak, fir, steel, sandstone, 24k gold
100×100×180 cm – 2025–2026
Even without a face, he is recognized.
Christ or Prometheus, he speaks no word, and yet he speaks to us.
His disemboweled body evokes suffering, but also redemption. Time seems to have no hold over him. On the contrary, he is suspended within it, in an eternal present.
Facing us at a child’s height, his proximity is surprising. Contrary to all expectations, he appears still very much alive beneath his fossil-like appearance.
The cherry tree that yielded this wood—the 'survivor,' as the locals called it—lived and endured much before being felled for no apparent reason.
But here he is, raised up, illuminated.
Is this not the meaning of our journey on earth?
The Role of Chance
This work was created for the 27th edition of the Chemins d'art sacré, held in Alsace in 2025 under the theme: 'Being Born and Reborn, Bearing Witness to Hope'.
Two months before its installation, I still had no idea what the nineteenth and final piece of my exhibition called 'Dying to Oneself to Birthing to Self' at Saint-Georges Church in Haguenau would be.
It was by chance that the wood for the Crucified came into my hands, the week after Easter, as I was looking for something else and had never seen the figure of the Crucified in it before. The rest became clear.
Meticulous Elaboration
The sandstone slab, embedded with fossilized vegetation (250 million years old), perfectly complemented the Crucified. It offered him his mandorla.
I envisioned the Crucified floating before it. This required meticulous shaping work.
I initially considered hanging the piece on the wall, but then changed my mind. It was essential to be able to walk around it and view the work from a three-quarter rear angle. This was made possible by the 18th-century oak beam, a primitive cross, inserted into the corner stone of a ruin and adjusted on sand. This sandstone base has since been reworked.
Support shaping
The shaping is carried out in the spirit of Japanese masters, cultivating intention and minimizing the use of machines as much as possible to preserve the intrinsic and sacred qualities of the material...
2026 - Reworking the Base
I had initially contented myself with sketching a labyrinth motif on the hidden face of the mortise that held the beam. After the exhibition, I felt the need to add a key at its center: the Teith.
The ninth letter of the Hebrew alphabet, Teith symbolizes, according to Annick de Souzenelle, the perfection of the created, 'the light of the accomplished having integrated all the darkness': the perfect fulfillment of humanity, in essence, after its purification through successive transmutations. The labyrinth, for its part, represents the challenge of incarnation, the necessary maturation of every human life.
