Environment 12
Hugo Servanin
23.11.24 - 01.02.25NıCOLETTı is delighted to present Environment 12, the second solo exhibition by French artist Hugo Servanin at the gallery, opening on Saturday 23 November (5–8 pm), on 91 Paul Steet, EC2A 4NY, London, UK.
The work of Hugo Servanin revolves around the creation of sculptures that the artist calls Géants [Giants]: hybrid beings that are first moulded on human bodies and then assembled with an array of synthetic materials. Referencing the aesthetics of classical sculpture – busts or naked bodies displayed on plinths – Servanin’s Géants express the visceral, fragile and ephemeral nature of human bodies. These characteristics are conveyed through the minute study of the bodies’ armatures and an empirical approach of materials.
In Environment 12, Servanin presents a new suite of sculptures made of multiple casts of human bodies that are then assembled to form hybridised beings. Made of different materials such as glass and chamotte clay, these sculptures are then going through procedures of successive addition and subtraction of matter, including steel powder, acid, lampblack and water. Through this process, the artist generates fissures, folds and scars that evokes the permanent mutation and transformation of organisms, presenting us with ambiguous, dissident bodies.