PRESS RELEASE

SILVER CHAIR : a gilded carpet for fish

Silver Chair 2015

Crdit Photo : Michael Krug

Galerie Joseph 116 Rue de Turenne 75003 Paris 5/ 10 September2015

Paris Design Week

PARIS DESIGN WEEK

Beatrice Blanchard, artist-designer, unveils her latest creation during Paris Design
Week, at the Galerie Joseph, establishment situated several minutes from the artists
studio.
The Silver Chair: bold and intriguing, at the frontiers of art and design, this new
creation offers a different perspective on contemporary furniture.

THE WORK
An art school graduate, Beatrice
Blanchard has explored diverse
creative forms since the 2000s,
ranging from craftsmanship, design
and conceptual art.
Her latest
work, the Silver Chair, represents a
new, precise step in her creative
process and in the expression of
her artistic enquiries. The projects
origins are in a little remark made
by her five year-old son, who
asked her to think up a gilded
carpet for fish. This surreal, childish
request captured the artists
imagination and she decided to
create an object that would
illustrate her sons poetic naivety.

La Silver Chair revisite par sa fille (5ans)

LE SAVOIR FAIRE
In an extension of her craftwork, Beatrice Blanchards new work is a subtle, masterful
expression of technical prowess and graphic purity. Also trained as a gilder, she has
always given priority to slow made design and to the quality of her chosen materials,
with rigorous standards in terms of traceability, use and treatment. In 2008, she
created a new embellishment baptized the Galuchette in reference to the
texture of galuchat, or shagreen. A recurring feature of the artists work, it is
nonetheless continually renewed. Thus, in the Silver Chair, this matter metamorphoses
into a geometrical, autonomous and graphic form to resemble a series of buttons
with a silver, reflective surface.
.

Each button is made according to the traditional water gilding technique. The
wooden pieces are first hand cut then finely sanded before receiving eight layers of
coating, each taking considerable time to dry before being recoated. The artist
then covers each buttons surface with black gesso that is also sanded before the
delicate positioning of the silver leaf. The metal is then burnished with an agate
stone, the only tool capable of making silver shine without scratching it. This step of
the process is extremely delicate and requires great technical skill.
The buttons are then positioned in such a way to follow the lines of the chair and
inlaid one by one into the leather.

BEATRICE BLANCHARD
Permanently experimenting new techniques and challenges, Beatrice Blanchard
thus introduces two new materials into her gilders palette: leather, noble and
vibrant, contrasts with the burr of copper, an everyday metal often applied to
industrial uses. The paradoxical combination of these three materials captures
our attention and mixes our preconceived value references for each, giving a
unique identity to the chair.

Equally present in the objects bold design are notions of derision and play.
Apparently a piece of furniture, the Silver Chair is in fact not at all destined to perform
its initial function. For it is so fragile and precious that it is impossible to use it as a
chair without damaging it. Thus deprived of its original function, the creation rids itself
of any utilitarian interpretation.
By reconsidering craftsmanship with poetry and a sense of the absurd, Beatrice
Blanchard invites us to question the ultimate destination of the objects that surround
us every day, thus confronting us with our own contradictions.

BB28-Crdit photo : Nicolas Scordia

She also presents at Galerie Joseph her exceptional piece, the modular low table
Modular 28 Fair , staged in a new configuration. All of the artists work can be
visited at her atelier, right beside the Place de la Rpublique.

The Modular 28 Fair -Crdit photo : Nicolas Scordia

CONTACT PRESS :
Guylaine Moreau O6 62 13 09 16 guylaineamoreau@yahoo.fr
CONTACT BEATRICE BLANCHARD :
Linkedin
Facebook: Blanchard Beatrice
Beatriceblanchard Design
Tweeter : #bb_design
Instagram: BEATRICEBLANCHARD.DESIGN