The new collection from international artist Frédéric Daty uses raw, hand-cut steel to explore the notion of London’s urban cityscape as an ecosystem.
FREDERIC DATY
FOREWORD By the year 2040, more than 5 billion human beings will live in cities of all forms: urban zones, conurbations, sprawling great metropolises with difficult-to-define city limits. The ability to render a city viable and coherent will be a gigantic challenge for the survival of humanity. Humans have created ‘monsters’ hard to control… However, it is interesting to see that the living spaces created by humans are in permanent evolution, their shape and form dictated by nature itself, such is the notion of a cell and the distribution of energy. The ‘city’ becomes an ecosystem. It has energy, diffusion, exchanges of substances. It is a catalyst for knowledge and a generator for technological revolutions, both good and bad. It is a protective cocoon but it can also be a trap, limiting freedom and choice. Frederic Daty studies the relationship between a maker and his artwork with his series of wall sculptures. He studies this relationship by stripping cities of their façades and focussing on the structure, the skeleton, the core recreated from material that comes directly from the ground, raw steel, and the flux of energy represented by shadows, light and perspective. Imagining himself at the helm of an enormous microscope, he is the observer, the silent witness to the vibrant “city-worlds” with their perpetual changes and emotions left for the spectator to infer.
Daty works to recreate the energy fluxes that surround cities. He directs the gaze of the viewer to the nucleus of these forces within his sculpture, from whence the eye is drawn outward, exploding in all directions. We can find in the generated movements gently undulating curves and spirals, juxtaposed alongside aggressive shapes depicting the opposing views on the city. With a bit of distance, time is compressed and kinetic energy dominates. The hyper-mobility appears and the city becomes an entire life space for the inhabitants. While the concept of a self-sufficient city is increasingly topical, as seen in Beijing and Monaco, Daty explores the image of an emerging ecological modern city and our utopian vision of the protective legendary cities, as imagined by our ancestors in various mythologies. In the tradition of artists as diverse as Hieronymus Bosch, Gustave Moreau, Moebius, he synthesizes the dreamlike vision of a city - be it submarine, floating among the clouds or bustling with the noise and colour of merchant cities past - which are self-managing, regenerating but also eradicating all kind of individualism. Daty’s work questions the love-hate relationship between a city and its creator, amplifying the tension drawn from his personal views, feelings and reflections, and giving form to the questions that this dichotomy raises.
OXFORD CIRCUS STATION Original wall sculpture | 168cm x 94cm x 20cm
WESTMINSTER STATION Original wall sculpture | 146cm x 128cm x 21cm
PICCADILLY CIRCUS STATION NORTH ENTRANCE Original wall sculpture | 184cm x 111cm x 16cm
“THE DISCOVERY OF KINETIC ART WITH CALDER, AND MORE RECENTLY SHUN ITO, PERSUADED ME THAT I HAD TO GO INTO THREE DIMENSIONS TO FIND A REAL INTERACTION WITH THE SPACE, AND A CONNECTION WITH THE VIEWER.” - FREDERIC DATY
PICCADILLY CIRCUS STATION SOUTH ENTRANCE Original wall sculpture | 185cm x 137cm x 21cm
BANK STATION Original wall sculpture | 157cm x 133cm x 22cm
BOROUGH STATION Original wall sculpture | 160cm x 107cm x 17cm
“THREE DIMENSIONS, SILHOUETTES, CLAIR-OBSCUR (LIGHT AND SHADOW), FLOATING PERSPECTIVE, MINIMALISM AND ANAMORPHISM, ARE THE INGREDIENTS FOR MY ARTWORK.” - FREDERIC DATY
TOWER HILL STATION Original wall sculpture | 98cm x 109cm x 18cm
ALDGATE STATION Original wall sculpture | 97cm x 91cm x 13cm
CANARY WHARF STATION Original wall sculpture | 118cm x 108cm x 11cm
“IN SHORT, THERE ARE ALWAYS THREE ELEMENTS TO MY WORK: THE METAL SYMBOLIZING MOTHER EARTH AND OUR FOUNDATIONS, THE STYLIZED FIGURATIVE SHAPES WHICH REPRESENT THE SPIRITUAL REALM, AND THE LIGHT AND SHADOWS WHICH EVOKE MOVEMENT AND CHANGE.” - FREDERIC DATY
LIVERPOOL STREET STATION Original wall sculpture | 83cm x 85cm x 11cm
TIME SQUARE Original wall sculpture | 150cm x 64cm x 18cm
BROADWAY Original wall sculpture | 150cm x 95cm x 13cm
“THIS TRINITY, OF METAL, SHAPES AND LIGHT, REPRESENT “LIFE” FOR ME AND WHAT I BELIEVE IN.” - Frederic Daty
CROSSROAD Original wall sculpture | 105cm x 103cm x 16cm
VANITY Original wall sculpture | 142cm x 97cm x 16cm
BIG BEN ROOTS Original wall sculpture | 89cm x 159cm x 13cm
“PAINTERS SUCH AS CARAVAGGIO, REMBRANDT AND GEORGES DE LA TOUR ALWAYS FASCINATED ME; PAINTING WITH LIGHT, HIDING DETAILS AND ENHANCING EMOTIONS THROUGH SUGGESTION.” - Frederic Daty
LONDON ROOTS Original wall sculpture | 69cm x 111cm x 13cm
ROOT CITY ‘KITEJ’ Original wall sculpture | 117cm x 92cm x 16cm
ROOT CITY ‘MERCATOR’ #2 Original wall sculpture | 73cm x 91cm x 15cm
“AS PART OF THE ART EVOLUTION, AFTER PERSPECTIVE, CUBISM, ABSTRACTION, IMPRESSIONISM, 3D VIEW IS AN ESSENTIAL CHARACTERISTIC OF THE ART IN THE TWENTY-FIRST CENTURY.” - FREDERIC DATY
ROOT CITY ‘IRAM’ Original wall sculpture | 70cm x 105cm x 15cm
ROOT CITY ‘ALGAE’ Original wall sculpture | 101cm x 116cm x 18cm
LONDON COCOON #1
LONDON COCOON #2
Original wall sculpture | 36cm x 18cm
Original wall sculpture | 36cm x 18cm
LONDON COCOON #3 Original wall sculpture | 36cm x 18cm
LONDON COCOON #4 Original wall sculpture | 36cm x 18cm
BIOGRAPHY Shared between my French and Canadian dual citizenship, one foot on each side of the Atlantic ocean, like all of us, I suffer that frenzy, that flood of images and movements without time to absorb... Confronted with an overload of images, an invasion of colours, a pouring out of futile information, my goal is to reinterpret the reality and break it down into its fundamental pieces. The medium I have chosen is a raw, primal material, without artifice and faddish coverings. I would like my work to be the opposite of a cluttered mind and soul, wrapped in superficial layers. My work contains stylized shapes and forms in an effort to be simple, clear and pure. Simplicity in the clearly defined shapes and lines is first meant to be pleasing to the eye, but it’s purpose is to make the viewer stay, rest, and contemplate the subtleties in their own lives - to enter into their own memories and reflect in the spiritual realm, things we can only do if we are still. The light and shadows also play an essential role in my art. The light animates the metal and plays with it, depending on the time of day and the movements of the people in the room. Although the metal itself is static, its surface and colour change in response to how it is lit, and gives
the impression that the work itself is also moving and evolving. However, it’s important for me that this constant change reflected on the surface of the metal is not done in a haphazard or contrived way, but in harmony with nature. There is nothing more natural than daylight; it changes rhythm as it falls on a strong element such as steel. In short, there are always three elements to my work: the metal symbolizing mother earth and tour foundations, the stylized figurative shapes which represent the spiritual realm and the light and shadows which evoke movement and change. This trinity, in turn, represent “life” for me and what I believe in. My artwork is made of hand cut steel pieces, welded, polished, finished and attached to the wall with fine stems. These pieces are then laid out to create a 3D fresco: a rebirth of the antique bas-relief with a modern, post-industrial touch. The individual elements are attached at different distances from the wall, creating volume and perspective, which, in turn, animates the stylized shapes. My work is divided into themed series or “one-shot” artwork expressing a feeling associated with one particular moment in time.
The images contained within this literature are an artistic representation of the collection. To best experience our art, we recommend you contact your local gallery to arrange a viewing. © Washington Green 2015. The content of this brochure is subject to copyright and no part can be reproduced without prior permission
Page 1 Page 2 Page 3 Page 4 Page 5 Page 6 Page 7 Page 8 Page 9 Page 10 Page 11 Page 12 Page 13 Page 14 Page 15 Page 16 Page 17 Page 18 Page 19 Page 20 Page 21 Page 22 Page 23 Page 24 Page 25 Page 26 Page 27 Page 28 Page 29 Page 30 Page 31 Page 32 Page 33 Page 34 Page 35 Page 36 Page 37 Page 38 Page 39 Page 40 Page 41 Page 42 Page 43 Page 44 Page 45 Page 46 Page 47 Page 48 Page 49 Page 50 Page 51 Page 52 Page 53 Page 54 Page 55 Page 56 Page 57 Page 58 Page 59 Page 60 Page 61 Page 62 Page 63 Page 64 Page 65 Page 66 Page 67 Page 68 Page 69 Page 70Made with FlippingBook - Online magazine maker