Laure Polin's sensible art

 

 

Art is a ceaseless dialogue and so is sculpture. It is a sensible art echoing with the artist's sensibility such as Laure Polin's. Her inspiring source are various with a common point, though: whole mankind with their emotions. It is so true when you see the humanized slate art pieces looking like small people.

Through her art, Laure Polin invites us to go beyond: beyond appearances, beyond clichés, beyond first impressions. Her creations are the result of a double interpretation coming from both the artist and the public.

Her works, in an uneasy or at least slowly way, reveal themselves. Facing them, you must take your time and learn the art of patience. But, after all, art is patience, isn't it?

 

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From one emotion to another

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M-H Christatos: How did you choose sculpture?

 

Laure Polin: By chance. I was a computer engineer and one day I watched "Camille Claudel". I was touched by the scenes about earth modeling. Six months later, I realized my first clay bust. It was a great emotion. Afterwards, I decided to attend sculpture lessons.
My teacher was Max Figerou, an Etienne-Martin 's disciple. He taught me how to go beyond clichés, he opened me the way to other things and showed me all the possibilities of this art. Once in the sculpture, it is sculpture that, in a way, chooses you: it always calls you. Obviously, there are still tough moments of doubt. You can't help it, however, you must go on.

 

M-H Christatos: You said: "I'm only looking for creating living shapes." Sculpture has its own life. Do you think your role is to enhance this inner life and strength?

 

Laure Polin: It's obvious for stones. A rough part is often visible on a work: it's a way of thanking it, of respecting it and of reminding where it comes from. As if I don't want to pervert it. It's an endless dialogue between the material and me. You have to constantly listen to it: if the gesture is too strong, the stone breaks; if the gesture is too weak, the result is none. Relation with stone is based on reciprocity: you must strike in order to get an answer from it.

 

M-H Christatos: You stated: "a living shape is an impulsive, full, fine shape which creates a relation with another shape." What is its relation to space?

 

Laure Polin: Space is a shape. Space is precisely a living shape for sculpture and vice versa. There is a synergy. The sculpture is a true presence. That's why I put many faces or body limbs.
Passing from stone work to plaster one ( when I realize bronze sculpture) is uneasy: you carve off stone, you take off material in order to give room to space so that, finally, space and stone are one and only thing.
Unlikely, I add some plaster or I knead and shape it.  With my plaster works, my artistic process is this one: I create a shape, then another one in echo.  When it'sgetting complicated, I simplify. My sculpture, however, always remains a volumes force.
Unlike my stone sculpture, upward movements are noticed in my plaster creations-and later in my bronze- because the material allows it. Restraint is therefore different and so are styles. My inspirations as well as my works of art are various according materials.

 

M-H Christatos: You stated: "I build a shape which makes me recognize the feeling I bear." Does chance exist in your works?

 

Laure Polin: I don't neither draw nor create a model. There is no plan. Sometimes, stone bears something obvious: I start working what I see but I refuse to lock myself inside. It often happens that, as last step, I turn a piece upside down in order to find again what I searched in it since the beginning. So, work and chance are mixed: it is a ceaseless work until I feel "this is it". Sculpture work stops when I recognize the idea I was searching for. The next step is only a craftsman finishing work. If it is a 'reluctant' stone, I leave it and take it again later. Usually I finish swifter. I had to break stones for liberation and a better restart.
Whereas, in the beginning, stone guides me, there is more willingness in plaster work. I can add some material but I can't turn it upside down. Nevertheless assembling grids and chiseling stones have the same process: shapes and volumes are echoing each other in both fields. I can lose control of this game; chance is, in a way, also present there.

 

 

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Artistic slates

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M-H Christatos: Please, present your slate portraits. What technique do you use?

 

Laure Polin: I collect myself slate in Briton (Western France) slate quarries. As soon as I see these little chips, I already distinguish portraits which astonish my friends who don't see anything!
Afterwards, it's a miniaturist work. I use wood tools such as a file or a wood chisel because slate is very fragile. Besides slates are only chiseled on one side because they are thin. For bigger pieces I use to grind in order to rough-hew them. I like its colour, its blueish black playing with light. I realized many of them and they were always welcomed by the public.

 

 

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M-H Christatos: Many of your works are questions. Do you find answers in art or does it symbolize art as a perpetual questioning and opening to the world?

 

Laure Polin: I don't realize that. A work of art must suggest and not answer. As my teacher said, if everything is said in a piece, it isn't art, it is illustration. Therefore, the work of art is an inner and outer questioning. It's an intimate matter as well as it speaks to public. The quest notion is important, intertwined to my work and my creations. Public must search into the work of art and even lose themselves in it. The work doesn't automatically, immediately reveal itself. I can understand some people are puzzled facing my works. You must go on and let yourself be overwhelmed by the piece of art in order to get what I wanted to express or not. It's true that my work isn't easy to understand.

 

M-H Christatos: You've got many inspiring sources. Your senses are on the watch. Is curiosity your only guide?

 

Laure Polin: Humanity and feelings are my guides. In sculpture, I look for humanity, emotion. 'Nereid' is made with a face on one side and a body on the other; not to mention the slate portraits since our face is so expressive! That's why I am not interested in animal sculpture. My research of balancing shapes is linked to the balance of human relations among pieces.
I long for the abolition of balance of power between human beings. I look for a kind of serenity.

 

 

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M-H Christatos: You are going to participate to the 2007 Canton art event. Versailles is exporting! Does it mean that, for the coming years, your career will be related to the worldwide market?

 

Laure Polin: Thanks to an organizer met in the Shanghai art event, I could exhibit my works in china. Facing my art to another culture is the aim. I, then, participated a second time to the Shanghai art event and to another one in Canton. It's both troubling and cheerful. It's usually a heterogeneous public. Chinese people take great care in the way of looking art pieces. They can stay 15 minutes observing a sculpture even though young people are less constant.
All this could have been made by chance. I don't consciously look for the 'international' market. Besides, everything is still open on account of my artistic career.

 

M-H Christatos: What do you think about art fairs, exhibitions and shows that are flourishing?

 

Laure Polin: The point is that everybody calls themselves artists (as illustrated the huge amount of painters on the contrary of sculptors). A selection doesn't exist and public as well as art galleries are baffled. I don't know how to solve this problem because we have to show our work. It may, however, turn against us.

 

M-H Christatos: In contemporary art, women artists take an increasing place and gain recognition. What's your opinion about that?

 

Laure Polin: It's good news! By the way, it's amusing to notice that women sculptors hold stands while sculpture lessons are taught by men. Women practice, they don't teach!
Nothing has changed for myself. It's great that professionals take a new look at us. I want to be considered as an artist not as a woman artist.
I dream of a world where divisions would no more exist but, on the contrary, would be surpassed.