Artist
About the Exhibition
- Discipline: Textile Sculpture
- Location: Galerie Renée-Blain, Alphonse-Lepage Sociocultural Center (directions)
Description
Textile sculptor Francois Bertrand presents a fragmented world consisting of seventeen dress sculptures whose skirts are made from birdcages. Inside these cages, dreamlike, playful, or dramatic installations invite visitors to rethink their perception of the cage and its usual connotations.
Often associated with confinement, a cage can also represent a place of protection or a refuge, much like our homes, which we sometimes describe as cozy nests. The difference, then, lies in the desire or the obligation to stay there.
Clothing thus becomes a vessel for the life it holds and the story it tells. The sculptures thus lead us to reflect on issues of identity and social concerns. The exhibition reveals that reality often depends on how we perceive it and that we must make an effort to be open to new perspectives.
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Women’s clothing has always fascinated François Bertrand, both for its elegance and for what it reveals about those who wear it, their era, and society as a whole. At the same time, his career in psychiatry and psychology has led him to look beyond appearances and find wonder where one least expects it.
Through the theatrical quality conferred by their human form, the dresses serve as a focal point for others’ gazes and elicit a form of projection or introspection. The artist’s work thus helps prompt reflection on our relationship with ourselves and the world around us, fostering a different perspective on things and people.
The artist creates fabrics by hand using various small pieces of recycled metal. To master the material, he bends, twists, cuts, saws, and drills it. Assembled one by one, sewn and embroidered with brass or iron thread, each metal piece is used in a new way and transformed into a magnified object—a dress that, as a whole, remains fragile.
To contact the artist: francoisbertrandpsy@icloud.com
