From March 30 to April 2 in Paris, multidisciplinary artists Jeremy Maxwell Wintrebert and Félicie d’Estienne d’Orves debuted their joint exhibition: “Stellogénèse” at The Espace Commines. The captivating project fused d’Orves’ mesmeric steel cube, Soleil (2016), with Wintrebert’s radiant sculpture work, Matter Sunrise Terminal G12 (2022). As Soleil flashed a spark of light at eight-minute intervals from a pinpoint window facing the sweeping sculpture, viewers were enveloped in a musical score by musician Owlle and the sensorial rapture of perfumer Nicolas Bonneville. Evoking the duration of time in which a photon of light from the sun reaches the earth, Wintrebert’s over 22-foot-long artwork represented the solar blaze itself, fully exploring humanity’s unbreakable bond with the cosmos.
Photo by Lauren Spitznagel, courtesy of the artist.
“The confrontation of the two pieces should create an impression of temporal distortion, between the almost imperceptible light emitted by the steel cube and the concentric reflections of Jeremy’s piece,” stated d’Orves. In a magnificent golden arch formation, Matter Sunrise Terminal G12 is made up of 50 mirrored blown glass cylinders for a poetic and metaphysical examination of our world’s creation. Wintrebert likens the formation of a star in the sky, where gaseous molecules are attracted to a fierce center of gravitational force, to his meticulous process of blowing glass, in which molten glass crystallizes around a pipe’s axis, producing spellbinding circular shapes.
Jeremy Maxwell Wintrebert, “Gravity Ripples,” 2018, 50 x 320 x 50 cm, 58 freehand mouth-blown black glass cives, steel bar and cables; photo by Jeremy Josselin, courtesy of the artist.
Alongside d’Orves’ Soleil, a multi-layered experience ensues. Wintrebert described the marriage of the two inspired works as, “an effect that pays homage to the dizzying power of these creative phenomena of everything, and therefore of us, and which would evoke in the viewer a mirror of their beginning, forged in infinite space.”
Jeremy Maxwell Wintrebert, “Matter Light Adèle,” 2020, 630 x 248 x 28 cm, 33 freehand, mouth-blown glass cives, mirrored, steel structure; photo by Jeremy Josselin, courtesy of the artist.
Taking the investigation further, olfactory artist Bonneville’s bespoke Le Parfum du Soleil (The Perfume of the Sun) was infused throughout the space, mirroring the artworks both in the process of fragrance crystallization and its intense reaction to gravity and time. Combined with the Hyper Pop undulations of Owlle, the result is purely primal, whisking viewers away on a journey that interrogates and celebrates the mystical fate of past, present, and future. “My participation in this immersive and poetic experience around the sun is a way for me to reconnect with my journey as a visual artist but also to nourish my imagination,” added Owlle. “Glass is a material that has fascinated me for a long time, so my encounter with Jeremy Maxwell Wintrebert was almost inevitable.”
Photo by Marion Saupin, courtesy of the artist.
Photo by Marion Saupin, courtesy of the artist.
Photo by Marion Saupin, courtesy of the artist.
Installation view of “Matter Sunrise Terminal G12,” photo by Jeremy Josselin, courtesy of the artist.
Installation view of “Matter Sunrise Terminal G12,” photo by Jeremy Josselin, courtesy of the artist.
