The essence of the IX movement in Steph Cop’s work
Steph Cop inscribes his artistic research in immersion in the ecosystem of the Morvan where he has installed his studio. The sculpture is part of a vital cycle in which the artist explores its extent. By carving the fallen trees, he prolongs their destiny in figures that perpetuate the memory of history. In the unfolding of his work, the Fragments are a series of carved sculptures that hold a special place. Interlude? Transition between two movements? A sequence of sculpture as an artistic moment in suspense that marks the end of the ARO cycle embodied in movement IX and the momentum towards a new creative dynamic, a momentum towards the monumental.
The Fragments, an abstraction of the mind embodied in the Cube
Fragments, forms Aroèdres They have a unique place in Steph Cop’s artistic research. They are a variation of the Cube Designed as the essence of the ARO movement, acronym for Analysis Reflexive Obsession, which defines the initiating approach of the movement. The Cube is the original that drives both the linguistic structure of the sculpted series and the cyclical rhythm of creation. The ordered forms of the movement ARO They come from the energy of an imaginary cube, which the artist conceives as a projection of the I, a projection of the introspective psyche. In its aesthetic transposition, the Cube For the artist, the base of the tree as he represents it in abstraction is the Cube; it is located above the roots. The Cube is the negation of the tree; the organic that gives life to the sculpted figure. It is the center of gravity, the unwavering support of the sculpted tree, the element where the bond between the strength of the tree and the sculptor’s gesture is forged; precise and with a dexterity that respects the material. The movement ARO This is a cycle of sculpture in the strict sense of the term, because although it was marked by a dynamic of rising lines, tension, purity, and asymmetry, a new gravity is emerging at the end of the artistic exploration, taking the ultimate form of a return to the Cube, consecrating the completion of the ordered sequence. The original imagination is then translated word for word into the final purity of an abstraction of the carved tree brought to life. The Cube symbolizes the extension of an obsession in creation. It performs a graft between the vitality of its sculptor being and that of the work that restores the grandeur of the tree. The AROed Fragments are derived from this Cube symbolism.
Fragment 000, 2020 – Bronze Green Patin
Bronze
8 copies + 4 E/A
No. 5/8
Numbered and signed work
H15 x L15 cm
Fragments, a meditative exploration of the Cube form
Formally, the sequence of Fragments, which came in the winter of 2020, consists of a deconstruction of Cube in an ordered sequence of asymmetries. The artist plays with prisms and asymmetries, echoing the previous moments of the work, namely Brain Amusement and Cerebrum Structura. The multiple and polymorphic facets of the Fragments are multiple perspectives that draw the fleeting contours of a plural identity between shades of darkness and salient features, like an allegory of the immobility, nuances, and paradoxes of the elusive nature of being. The asymmetry introduces an imbalance and defies the geometric status of the cube; it creates contingency, an event that is neither entirely due to chance nor to determinism. These Fragments, the artist calls them Polymorphes de l’âme; for him they are the abstraction of a refracted mind. He invites everyone to a meditative game with these Fragments and the multiplicity of possibilities they represent. An antidote to uniformity and normativity.
Fragment 000, 2020 – Patine Antico Verde
Bronze
8 copies + 4 E/A
E/A No. IV/IV
Numbered and signed work
H15 x L15 cm
Original forms carved in wood and printed in chromatic shades of bronze
Two series of Fragments were sculpted by Steph Cop, one in 9 forms in 5x5cm format, the other in 9 forms and 3 studies in 15x15cm format.
The first series of Fragments AROèdres of 5x5cm includes 9 original sculpted forms printed in bronze 8+4. In this bronze edition, each form corresponds to a chromatic nuance: I/IX black, II/IX antique green, III/IX silver, IV/IX charcoal matte, V/IX copper, VI/IX aluminum, VII/IX gold, VIII/IX March brown, IX/IX green. These small fragments are held in the palm of the hand and then offer a tactile and spiritual play, a sensory encounter with multiple perspectives. An aesthetic exploration, an artistic amusement for an unprecedented way of approaching Steph Cop’s work. Increasingly, the artist, whose sculpture bears witness to immersion in an ecosystem, invites everyone whose gaze questions the work to engage in a narrative that is both embodied and imaginary – that of the symbiosis between Art and Living Things, because connecting is indeed the vocation of Art.
The second series of Fragments consists of sculptures measuring 15x15cm. In this sequence, Steph Cop sculpted a series of 12 Fragments in wood, including 9 numbered forms and three studies n*0. The Fragment AROèdre 000 in walnut was produced in different chromatic shades of bronze that reveal the features and flaws of the original material: Black, Copper, Antique Green, Bronze Green, Aluminium, Silver, Gold, Antique Green, Silver, Black. The chromatic shades of bronze give a unique depth and reflection to the roughness and wrinkles of the original material.
Fragment 000, 2020 – Black Patine
Bronze
8 copies + 4 E/A
No. 4/8
Numbered and signed work
H15 x L15 cm
Fragments, a push towards monumental sculpture
In Steph Cop’s work, the Fragments constitute a turning point marking a transition between Movement IX Arbre and a new direction that, emancipating itself from the anthropomorphic figure ARO sculpted into the tree, unfolds towards abstraction and monumentality. Although the cycle ARO When it ends, the power of the work remains inexhaustible. A word that exists only in the Japanese language could poetically evoke the appearance of Aroèdres : Nagori suggests the imprint left by something that is no longer; that presence that persists from a finished event, the trace that prolongs a closed cycle. A flower that blooms after the season, a moon whose contours are still discernible as the sun rises. These dismantled and sculpted fragments are this persistent trace of the cycle. ARO Which has come to an end. The work’s message will remain the search for the memory history of the tree embodied in a material from which the artist extends the vital momentum. The sculpture is imprinted with the traces of a singular trajectory, and now the artist’s hand will restore the natural form in a stylized abstraction, in the spirit of the unfinished aesthetics of the non-finite. In his emerging sculptures, Steph Cop explores the traits of the naturalness inherent in the tree and the biography revealed in its intimate material—the flesh. Each tree brought to life by the sculpture will now open the history of a new planted tree that will prolong the narrative.
