Le Plateau
Paris

Laurent Le Deunff, Arbre à chat VIII, 2014 Photo : Jean-Christophe Garcia Courtesy Semiose galerie

Arbre à chat Felis catus arbor

Laurent Le Deunff

 

Whether Laurent Le Deunff is involved with carving wood directly for his Totems, or in the wild hijacking of a piece of furniture – a leather sofa, cut up and metamorphosed into a teepee -, he mainly focuses on “handmade” sculpture, its forms and its materials. His oeuvre is informed by ancestral questions – animality, archaism, ritual… – while at the same time wittily returning to our day and age and some of its shortcomings.
The artist is showing a Arbre à chat set in la vitrine, with a presentation evoking a scientific collection or a display of merchandise. Drawing inspiration from these strange city-dweller’s objects, meant to arouse the hunting instinct of apartment-bound cats and looking very like sculptures, Laurent Le Deunff creates abstract constructions of small scale forms. Devoid of any function, devised by fashioning and arranging bits of wood and other materials, they trace circuits and movements in space, raise sculptural issues, and, not unwittily, convey the fantasy quest of a return to nature.

Opening, Wednesday 04.02.15