'Pierre and the Almond Tree' by Érika Muller, Nick Ballon and Tomás Alonso at Victor Hunt Gallery

24 April - 5 June '14

Brussels

‘Pierre and the Almond Tree’ is a collaborative exhibition inspired by 90 year old artist Pierre Leron Lesur and the source of his work the Almond tree.

Érika Muller, Nick Ballon and Tomás Alonso have collaborated from art & design disciplines to reinterpret Pierre’s practice. Following on from a 50 year old foraging ritual, they started with a walk to find a old almond tree near Avignon and Saint Remy de Provence. The dead tree they discovered and its significance is the central theme to each of the works being exhibited by the artists.

The exhibition “Pierre and the Almond tree” was born from an unlikely encounter: that of three young international artists and designers (Érika Muller, graphic designer; Nick Ballon, photographer; and Tomás Alonso, furniture designer) with Pierre Leron Lesur, a French artist from Saint Rémy de Provence who has in the last fifty years developed “Sylvistructure”: a unique practice at the crossing point between art and craftsmanship.

“My work reveals raw wood, stripped from any artifice. Nature is a spectacle. One needs to open their eyes to the mystery of the trees.” (Pierre Leron Lesur)

Sylvistructure aims to reveal the natural beauty of old pieces of wood found on country paths. The technique involves delicately stripping the wood from decomposing matter, in order to reveal its core. Throughout his career, Pierre Leron Lesur has developed a specific interest in the almond tree: a singular tree with twisted shapes that is becoming increasingly rare in Provence.

The project was born from a dialogue between disciplines and generations – with an original collaboration between three London based creatives – working at an international level in art and design – and Pierre Leron Lesur, 90 years old, a self-taught and atypical artist whose work is rooted in the Provence land.

The three participants undertook to reinterpret the notion of sylvistructure.

Following Pierre’s ritual, they started by looking for an old almond tree near Avignon and Saint Rémy de Provence. Each of the pieces displayed gravitates around this tree and the path that led them to it.

This tree, found and chosen by the artists, is the exhibition’s leading thread and is displayed together with the other pieces.

Victor Hunt Gallery
Zennestraat 40 rue de la Senne
B-1000 Brussels
Belgium