Arnaud Gueguen- Sculptures for in or outdoors, Art Design Furniture, Jewelery

Some biographical information

Arnaud Gueguen was born in1972, Quimper, Brittany where he returned to work as a full time sculptor after spending about 10 years in Paris and London and another year in La Reunion Island and Madagascar where he worked with local sculptors. Arnaud is mainly self-taught. He started sculpting after his daily work in the Bois de Vincennes, near Paris in the mid 90s.

Arnaud Gueguen mostly works with all kind of essence of wood found locally, most of them being recycled from storms, or simply found on the beach or forests.

         

                

Arnaud Gueguen also works on a commission basis for personal and corporate clients. For more information please contact Marine Gueguen Strage.

More information on the exhibition "Hands on Nature" :

A simple piece of wood left over from the storm and buried in the mud in the isolated bend of the river Odet. A keen eye. Two hands. A tool. And lots of love.
These are the ingredients Arnaud Gueguen uses to unveil and reveal each piece he comes across during his long walks along the rivers or the beaches of Finistère.

His London solo exhibition is a celebration of Nature.
The French artist was born and still works in Brittany. Over the last 10 years the artist has been interested in sculpting and carving wood that mostly is recycled from the forests surrounding him, in a part of France that resonates with Celtic heritage.

His work deals with the relationship that human beings have with the natural environment and landscape and how we can discover beauty in simple natural elements like wood. His subject matter is centered on the question of how to preserve the deep connection we all ought to have with Nature.
His quest on always having a closer look and understanding of natural elements and how humans can interfere with it enable him create original pieces.

Arnaud Gueguen values any piece of wood like a precious stone. As he says: “each essence, each piece has its own origin, story, personality, shape and my hands just have to follow what the wood tells me to do. To soften its roughness, to tame it, you have to look deeper than the surface, you first remove the skin in order to get through its heart, and then you find the connection, your connection with nature.”

Polishing, softening, emptying, carving in order to find sensuality in the substance is what Arnaud Gueguen is trying to find in his work. “Stroke after stroke, the wood becomes gentle, tender”, he says.
His new series of sculptures deals with the notion of negative space. The emptiness of their form is strangely full of meaning. It can remind us of the quality of some Japanese drawing where harmony invites contemplation.
There is for sure a Minimalist and meditative quality in his work.
Even if each piece of work is very complete and forms a whole, each angle and face of the sculpture offers an unique perspective as if it was made to be looked at from just that angle alone.

His body of work goes from big scale totems style sculptures that can be put outside in a garden or inside a house, to a wide variety of sizes mobiles, stabiles, and even pieces of jewelery.

His main sources of inspiration are nature itself and his response to it. His influences range from Calder, Henry Moore and Picasso, to jazz music like Django Reinhardt.

Arnaud’s art is also very much driven and influenced by his lifestyle and values. A mix of bohemian and Robinson Crusoe lifestyle makes him stay away from the turmoil of the city life and probably gives such a pure and ecological feel to his work.

The Hands on Nature London show displays beautiful sensuous semi-abstract pieces up to 2 meters high that evokes form of trees or waves or even shadows of human figures as well as an amazing selection of jewelery.


Marine Gueguen-Strage © 2008