Baptiste Lanne is a French sculptor, born in 1987, who lives and works in the south-west of France. His practice of sculpture is intimately linked to that of harvesting. Walking, searching, collecting, and then simply sculpting, assembling and colouring. In such a way as to sublimate the material, the better to make it forgotten. Because the real object of his research lies in transmitting his fascination for the attributes of nature and the phenomena that govern it. In giving tangible form to a reality that simultaneously surrounds us and eludes us.
What do the erosion of bedrock, the proliferation of cells, the spreading of shadows or the unfurling of plant matter have in common? All too often they go unnoticed by us. Trees grow as we breathe: indifferently.
Sculpture is seen as a testimony to a past movement. Like the imprint left by matter that, everywhere and all the time, advances in silence. As a constantly renewed attempt to extend our representations of the world. In the end, it's less a question of sculpting wood than of materialising a vital impulse in space, fleeing shadow for light.
Phloéme, anabiose, parhélie, encyclie, pulsar, etc. The French language is full of treasures for naming the host of silent energies that animate life.