The Gold of Wounds
Ode to Life
Fir, camellia oil, sandstone, finger painting, pure 24k gold
7×22×13 cm – 2025
Standing atop its base of raw stone, the work seems to emerge from a bygone era.
A fragment of wood, gnawed by time, rises in an ecstatic immobility. The grain of the material bears the stigmata of a slow metamorphosis.
A golden line traverses the matter like a luminous scar, reminding us that beauty is also born of the wound. A sign of repair and consecration, it restores life to the vestige and honors it.
The work thus becomes a relic, testifying to the vicissitudes of existence and to a memory: that of the wood which was once a tree, of the fire that destroys and purifies, and of the hand that repairs and sublimates.
Balancing between extreme fragility and power, it calls upon us to contemplate the tension between the ephemeral and the eternal, between ruin and rebirth. It gives voice to the silent conversation between matter and time, between distress and light.
The Story of a Life
This work was inspired while I was seeking a gift for a reserved person whose intimate wounds I had perceived.
By bringing this piece of wood—immobilized for decades within a structural beam—back to life, I give it a voice once again.
It is the story of them both that this intimate creation tells, realized in the tradition of kintsugi*. A meditation on life, its hardships, and our capacity to traverse and overcome them.
Ineffable Exchange
I pay close attention to the choice of raw materials, their energy, and their memory.
Perceiving this subtle essence requires a long period of mutual immersion, an ineffable exchange, and the time necessary for the initial intuition to clarify and materialize.
The quality of this interaction determines the sensory experience subsequently lived by the viewer.
