ARTISTIC APPROACH

I’ve always had a penchant for complex spaces, for nooks and crannies, for hidden areas and those highlighted, but also for busy spaces where accumulation reigns supreme. I’d much rather have an English garden than a French one! I like to superimpose layers, vary thicknesses and play with colors. It’s this predilection for profusion and complexity that today dictates the character of my artistic creations and gives them a highly graphic allure.

To arrive at the shapes that make up my sculptures, I work on several aspects: the silhouette of the solid form, but also the shape of the void between two solid forms. I also work on irregularity and imperfection. Like human beings, I believe it’s imperfections that give character: just as an asymmetry on a face gives it relief and originality, my shapes are deliberately uneven and imperfect. The lines are never completely straight, the curves deliberately imperfect. In my opinion, imperfection – a very subjective notion, by the way – catches the eye and sets the work apart.

My work has a very graphic aspect. I find it fascinating to play with superimpositions, crossovers, stacking and scale, creating compositions that defy geometry while capturing the essence of strangeness.

The work is sometimes very thoughtful, sometimes very intuitive and spontaneous. A subtle interplay of shapes and counter-forms, hollows and solids, light and shadow, color or wood, like a seemingly random but carefully orchestrated chromatic ballet. I can spend days building and deconstructing a sculpture until I find that “perfect” balance that makes it beautiful in my eyes.

BIO

Amicie de Bouteiller has long been driven by an almost unconditional love of wood. This material seduces all her senses: its infinite hues, its singular patterns, its sometimes astonishing texture, and even its fragrance: nature is definitely an artist in her own right.

But it was in 2018, when an event turned her life upside down, that she decided to change her path. At the time, Amicie de Bouteiller was going through several dark years that forced her to deconstruct her life in order to reinvent it. She left the group she worked for to train as a cabinetmaker and launch a completely new professional project.

For two years, Amicie de Bouteiller discovered woodworking at the Ecole Boulle, particularly veneering and contemporary marquetry. She loves the interplay of shapes and colors that creates a “painting” on a piece of furniture.

It was at this time that she created her first sculptures in veneered wood, which she backlit to add an extra dimension. Over the years, her passion has been transformed and enriched by an infinite palette of colors.