P. Zoé Vayssières

“The instant present is already past. How can we capture the instant, so fleeting in nature?

After working with everyday objects, I took paper and its folds, so common to all. Right after you crease a paper, it unfolds, unwinds and expands, yet nevertheless keeps the trace of its folding. During the work of sculpture, the bronze material – unalterable – freezes this ephemeral reality.

Folds also symbolize memories.

The notion of time is different in each culture. In Europe we see time as a past, a present, and a future. In Asia, it is a collection of cycles.

The words of the philosopher Gilles Deleuze gives a telling example: When you feel full, it is not so much what you just ate, but all the “tiny hungers, pricklings, little foldings” that are full. This satisfaction is not only linked to the present moment but to all the folds of memory that suddenly unfold. In one-fold of the sculpture, you can read a quote from Gilles Deleuze as a dedication: “Folded in what precedes, folded into what follows.”” Zoé Vayssières

BIOGRAPHICAL NOTES

Zoé Vayssières is a French artist, born in 1971. She is a graduate of ENSAD (The National Superior School of Decorative Arts, Paris). After 15 years working on commissions as Art Director in the fields of art and fashion, China gave her the chance to focus on sculpture only. She recently received several large-scale outdoor commissions in China, including one from the Jing’an Sculpture Park (Shanghai).

She collects fleeting and endangered objects, and casts them in bronze to make them timeless. Her inspiration also lies in words, quotations and forgotten names, which she engraves upon bronze. The artist combines embedded text and daily objects to question the selection that our collective memory makes.