Every creative work begins with a lengthy field study. After hundreds of hours spent sketching in zoos, stud farms, museums, and circuses, Michel BASSOMPIERRE has memorized the volumes, plans, muscles, characteristics, and spirit of each subject.
These sketches will be transformed into models. Clay lends itself particularly well to this work of research and analysis of forms. These small subjects will then be enlarged to create bronze and marble sculptures.
THE STUDIO
“It takes me a month or two to analyze my subject. But to fully master it, it takes about ten years. And to understand sculpture, it takes 50 years.”
Michel BASSOMPIERRE also creates monumental sculptures from his models. Clay then gives way to polyurethane foam and plaster.
RAW MATERIALS
Michel BASSOMPIERRE takes particular care in choosing his raw materials. He enjoys working with noble materials that have a durability that spans thousands of years, such as Carrara marble. This type of marble has been renowned since Antiquity for its whiteness, which has little veining, and its quality. His bronzes are editions, and therefore numbered.
SKETCH
Trained in Leleu's studio at the Rouen School of Fine Arts, Michel BASSOMPIERRE learned to observe. He created thousands of sketches through which he built his understanding of the animal's body, this skillfully articulated machine whose line and movement he captured. It is precisely this life that he manages to bring out, making his work so sensitive. If the drawing is decisive, the modeling applied to it completes the whole.
