One of the most striking features that I have discovered this morning in the new work by Vincent Dubourg, exhibited in a solo show, Vortex, at Carpenters Workshop Gallery, is the sense of the lightness, almost airiness that characterizes all of his forms. The DNA of the material, aluminum, so heavy and solid, against the illusion of weightless, makes the pieces surprising, fresh, surreal, and unexpected. For the French designer, who creates at his studio in Creuse, a small town by the river Creuse in Central France, function is secondary to form and to his craft. And his forms, while translated from nature, are always sensuous and poetic, always in motion, emerge from the crafted material like a magic. In my visit to the gallery this morning with my class, I asked Dubourg, who works solo at his studio, how long does it take him to craft one piece of furniture, and his answer was ’40 years,’ his age. It is a work of lifetime to him, each piece. They shine in the stunning space of the gallery with its black carpet and gray wall, located in the iconic Takashimaya building. Definitions are less important. He does not want to define himself as a sculptor or a designer, nor to define his work. Thank you, Vincent Dubourg for a fascinating session this morning, and to Ashlee Harrison, Loic Le Gaillard and Julien Lombrail for making this happen.
