Visit to the Bruno Bossut studio
“It all began in 2008 with the creation of a moulded replica of the iconic Bofinger chair (1966) by designer Helmut Bätzner. For the first time, Bruno Bossut chose to treat the surface of an object not in a monochrome way, but in the manner of a painter. He then enters the pictorial universe with envy. The artist works along three axes, each of which draws on the characteristics of the other. Firstly, there is the desire to sculpt paint, then to deform real objects and finally to create replicas of mythical furniture by turning them into real utilitarian pictorial surfaces. Each time it is a question of provoking movement in the object and/or the viewer by apprehending a volume.
It is gradually that painting becomes sculpture. The artist begins his reflection by painting a canvas mounted on a frame with a thick resin and large strokes. The work is monochrome, abstract. What is important is not so much what is represented as the play of light in the striations of the material. (It is not by chance that Bruno Bossut is transported by the work of Van Gogh and Soulages.) The light reveals a volume, we leave a flat surface to approach the third dimension.
The creator decides to make his canvases into silicone moulds that he deforms to produce an object that is unique in its volume, but identical in its surface, and thus passes from a piece to be presented on the wall to a sculpture to be placed on a pedestal. For the spectator, this means leaving a contemplative immobility and entering a sort of choreography revealing the contours of the work. Two movements take place: the medium of painting is evacuated in favour of sculpture; the manufactured fibreglass object takes the place of the real object (a canvas mounted on a frame).
Particularly fond of breaking the limits of reality and making possible what is not normally possible, the artist tackles the deformation of objects, in particular mirrors. He makes moulds of them which he deforms and, thanks to chrome paint and gilding, simulates the properties of a mirror glass and its wooden moulding. The image of the viewer, caught in this frame, becomes a moving picture subject to the alterations of the mirror. The viewer may have his silhouette intact, but the object reflects something else. The real is as if disguised. Once again, only the interaction completely animates the object, like a game that must be manipulated to reveal all its aspects.
As a collector of design furniture from the 1970s, Bruno Bossut creates replicas by making a mould. The latter then becomes the equivalent of a blank canvas on which the artist applies the tinted resin as the painter paints his canvas. The gestures adopted are designed to underline the curves of the object. For the designer, it is not a question of modifying its status – it retains its function as a seat or table – but rather of adding an additional dimension. The user then navigates between design, sculpture and painting. The four armchairs and the coffee table in the “Each to his own” set are like pieces of a jigsaw puzzle which, when correctly assembled, form a pictorial composition in volume and function. The choice of bright colours is the result of the artist’s intuition, while the production is the result of perfectly mastered processes and skills. Freedom, surrealism and humour run through Bruno Bossut’s work, which breaks down the boundaries between different fields of creation.