Jacques Rieu's sculptures are realized in the most diverse materials: marble, limestone and granite, or modeled in clay, and numerous works are sculptured in diverse wooden essences (yew, elm, sequoia). Materials are chosen to perfectly fit the forms.
We discover or rediscover forms, extremely varied volumes, which develop tense and pure curves, present polished or rough surfaces, and show mysterious cavities, or sometimes complex associations.
Rieu explores and draws his own way with a talent which belongs only to him. I wish you to go fast to judge it by yourself.
Extract of blog www.gilblog.fr, dedicated to La Borne.
1st sculpture Price at the fair of Villiers Saint-Paul
Annual bursary for sculpture from The Beaux Arts academy, Tronchet foundation
Resident at the Laurent Vuibert foundation at the Lourmarin castle, France
International symposium of Brach, Croatia
Awarded Great Price of the Taylor Foundation
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2021 Enfances, collective exhibition, Galerie Capazza, Nançay
2020 Le torse d’une femme à la pureté d’un vase, grandes courbes simples d’un fruit désiré, Parcours d’art contemporain autour d’Auguste Rodin, 1 exhibition, 5 places, collective exhibition, Galerie Capazza, Nançay
2019 L’arbre, c’est le temps rendu visible, collective exhibition, Galerie Capazza, Nançay
2018 Miroir des Sentiments, collective exhibition, Galerie Capazza, Nançay
2017 Il est grand temps de rallumer les étoiles, collective exhibition, Galerie Capazza, Nançay
2016 Vénus et Vulcain, collective exhibition, Galerie Capazza, Nançay
2015 Biennial of contemporary art in Sologne, maison du cerf de Villeny, Loir-et-Cher
Abstract Project, collective exhibition, Espace des arts abstraits, Paris
2014 Exhibition Sauvages with Jacques Rieu and Reid Masselink for the European Heritage Day in the Fontainebleau area, at Bourron Marlotte
Approach of my work as a sculptor - Jacques Rieu
My plastic research is about the mystery of creation and the one of the animal diversity with its characteristics.
At first, I study the mechanics of the bodies, the structure and the architecture of the bones that I collected during my travels or my meetings.
Some bones particularly attract me and hold my attention.
The skull, which is the most complex form of bone, in particular the receptacle of the five senses, was my first subject of study. It can even be associated with locomotion linked to the position of the occipital hole.
I widened the field of my research to all the other bones (long bone, short bone, vertebrae, wishbone, astragalus, sphenoid...) and thus constituted a library of forms linked to a function which are for me the expression of a natural beauty.
Just as Darwin - in particular with his finches of the Galapagos Islands which led him to his theory of the evolution - I study several individuals of the same species to invent a specimen that the direct size will make remarkable.
This idea of sculpture, I confront it with different materials (wood, stone, earth).
The disproportion and the properties of these materials lead this work of direct size to aesthetic surprises, another glance and a singular abstraction:
- a dog's shoulder blade becomes the coat of Saint Roch in Cuban mahogany
- a chicken wishbone turns into a stainless steel arch
- an equine cervical, an endless column...
Inscribed in a dynamic of the celebration of life, these sculptures of naked stone are looked at as counter-vanities.
They remind us all of our fossil eternity.
Anchored in the Green Perigord, I dialogue with all that nourishes and perpetuates this mystery:
- the caves (evoking the history of before, anthropological manifestation of the links which unite the man and the mother earth)
- prehistory, at the crossroads of science and art (Callipyge Venus, carved stone, tools…)
- the forest (refuge of the living, the wild and the sacred in our collective memory)
- the fauna, the flora and the Dronne, the source of life.