In the Wunderkammer, 2019
Stabilised natural leaves, aluminium leaves, brass, steel, and iron. Varnish finish, galvanic etchings, cutting, graphite, and magnets.
Courtesy of the Galerie Alberta Pane, Paris/Venice
Work produced by the Giovanardi Corporation
Photographic credits: Andrea Rossetti
Marie Denis
Stabilised natural leaves, aluminium leaves, brass, steel, and iron
400 X 200 X h 250 cm
It is through a revisiting of natural elements and their multiple uses that Marie Denis creates her works. The artist seized the invitation to collaborate with the company as an opportunity to experiment with new technical methods and explore the possibilities of luxury materials. Using nature as a starting point, the essential substance of her creations, the materials are transformed, and new forms come to life. The work presents the viewer with sensitive vegetation, changed and changeable, open to various interpretations and other meanings. Marie Denis’ installation is a Wunderkammer of marvels, including graphite ferns, giant coconut palm fronds executed in black, opaque, curved, and varnished foil, zinc-plated copper foliage, lotuses turned into moulds for magnificent multi-veined silk screens. Demystifying Denis, cataloguing and listing all the senses, undoes the distance between similar and realistic, secularising what her artist’s hand and her vision, poetic and technical, touch and transform. And in boxes of wonders of opaque black metal, other objects are found that attest to this organic and fantastic herbarium that escapes a chaotic fate thanks to ideas, talent, and manufacturing know-how linked to technical and technological expertise.
FERN: container and support in polished steel with brushed edges. Natural stabilised fern covered in graphite. Intersecting branches fastened with copper wire.
LOTUS FLOWER: metallic mesh covered in opaque black faux leather with a ‘soft touch’ effect. Translation of the leaves in aluminium with a finish obtained from anthracite varnish on embossed paper.
COCONUT PALM FROND: Natural, stabilised and painted velvet black. Translation of the leaves in aluminium incised with a pantograph and shaped by hand.
ASPLENIUM LEAF: Translation of the leaves in brass, engraved, roped together, and shaped by hand. Copper-coated finish obtained in a galvanic bath with a transparent, protective antioxidant.
CELOSIA LEAF: Translation of the leaves in iron, engraved, calendered, welded, and shaped by hand. Black velvet finish and opaque enamel. Variation with magnetic toys with iron powder.
