Les galeries Saint Martin sont heureuses de vous...
MAZEL & JALIX
Form and substance come together and the use of bronze, in its most primitive way, stressed the subject of Mazel & Jalix, staging the simplest aspects of life.
On boxes, pedestals, plates, the fruits stand but never freeze, so many vanities placed in the garden of Hesperides where fruit at the center waits to be selected and tasted, not as an object of conflict but of pleasure, then the bronze becomes a living object of desire. However, the careful observer will see that, here and there, withering already appear and the fruit, too ripe, stains and bends under its own weight. Decomposition is already there, leaving its stamp on Mazel & Jalix’s work. Create brings the work to its end, its decay, but subsequently the fruit returns to the earth in an eternal renewal.
Such as 18th century’s Naturalists, Mazel & Jalix build a ‘natural’ collection between the research and idealization. Sculptures’ titles reduce works to studies. It is to gather and name a chosen specimens set, emblems of a changing nature
GRAFF
ANTOINE GRAFF
Antoine Graff’s destiny was not “folded” from the start. Of course, born a painter’s son and grandson of a blacksmith, it was inevitable that the arts would have an effect on him. Not to mention he has a surname which sounds like a pseudonym! Yet his career panned out a bit differently, between colouring, adventuring, and paper folding.
Antoine Graff started to paint at the age of 8. At 14, the age when adolescents typically begin their teenage crises, he received his first commission! In 1954, he left his native Alsace and started studying fine arts in Paris, but primarily cut classes. His instinct encouraged him to visit the studios of artists Zadkine and Lhote. Zadkine, a sculptor, liked the feet of Graff’s statues. The painter Lhote considered him to be an excellent illustrator, once he abandoned Delacroix! Graff was trained by these two masters, and good ones at that! Surely an umpteenth tomfoolery.
His real adolescent crisis came at the age of 26, as he thought he was no longer “skilled.” It was a period of emptiness, when the homo habilis engaged in a fiery war against himself. Yet the biggest paradox is that this time allowed him to produce his work, supported by these his two gallery owners art dealers. However, nothing came of it.
He created a prestigious business of window displays for pharmacies that would make any seasoned businessman envious. The patent that he filed brought him 11 thousand pharmacy clients on a plate! But the homo habilis was not content with window displays. Instead, Graff took up print advertising. His expertise soon attracted artists. Télémaque, Arman, César, and Villeglé all lined up in his new back room to have their original prints produced. His business gradually evolved from printing to art publishing. He acknowledged it not nostalgically, but with an assertively humorous sense of perspective. His wealth grew, he travelled, and money was easy. Then came the ultimate stroke of genius: he was given the luxury of creating the gallery La Main Blue in Strasbourg, where he held exhibitions for Alechinsky, Bram van Velde and even Télémaque. For five years, he had his ideal project; tinkering in art.
PONCHARAL
More Aix-en-Provence than Biarrote, Léa Poncharal grew up with coloured pencils and
brushes thanks to his grandfather who transmits his passion.
She first asserts herself with great portraits of famous figures: Lenny Kravitz, Tiger Woods, Al Pacino,
or Dali, which she declines to the plural and treats with great strokes of brushes in
capturing the power of expression.
Sometimes she stages like the boxer Mohamed
Ali ready to fight or Daniel Craig, aka James Bond, in the middle of
women, cars and bankboards, taking care of both the bottom and the
form.
The sculpture gradually took its place in the universe of Lea, helped by technology,
She seems to have found her way.
Especially with his works made with
silk scarves, which she sublimates in different forms, like butterflies, hearts
or even on car steering wheels… A new technique.
His dream? Continue to develop this technique and dedicate his whole life to the
creation.
KALA
Thanks to his thoroughness, talent and imagination, Jean Paul KALA manages to transform these metallic surfaces into real objects of contemporary art.
The refined works of Jean Paul Kala are a true ode to the powerful and authentic nature of his cradle: «Nord-Kivu» where he was born in the 70s.
Attracted by matter and mechanics, the hands of the budding artist, do not hold in place and, when becoming a teenager, Jean Paul KALA discovers the welding and shaping of metals, it is a revelation that takes possession of his being: he becomes a recognized expert in the field.
The European dream was for years in its projects.
In the 2000s he decided to cross the CAP and settle in Belgium where he perfected his technique among the best, obtaining the recognition of his peers and the most demanding amateurs.
Probably influenced in part by the ancestral art Imigongo, precursor of the abstract art, he launched in 2013 his own brand of high-end furniture R&J which very quickly acquires a reputation among enthusiasts in search of the beautiful and the exclusive.
The creations of Jean Paul Kala are distinguished by organic curves, elegant and generous; undoubtedly the fruit of his African origins.
Technical mastery combined with extreme minutia transform metal into masterful creations of contemporary art.