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Ghyslaine and Sylvain STAELENS
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Ghyslaine and Sylvain Staelens
Ghyslaine and Sylvain Staelens first became an artistic team in 1996, when the two self-taught artists decided to move into the remote countryside of D’Auvergne. This volcanic region provided them with plenty of materials with which to create sculpture, bas-relief, masks, figurines, totems, and crucifixes. The floating wood, roots, and rusted metals that they found there soon became indispensable to their work. The media used gives the illusion of being from a primitive, more ritualistic way of life.
Starting from sophisticated assemblies of tree branches and roots, the couple manufactures creations that give rise to animal and human forms. The unit, imbued with nails and wires and oxidized to give the appearance of rusted metal, is meant to give body to the various mental entities that stimulate us or torment us. For the artists, the flexible and solid wire symbolizes attachment, the barbed wire and the nails symbolize suffering and the human horror, and the branches represent the discipline, the rigor, the control of the spirit. The artists compare the process by which they apply their sophisticated sand formula to the exercise of an exorcism.
Ghyslaine and Sylvain, fascinated and influenced by Latin American and African tribal art, produce oeuvres of an astonishing visceral power. The passion, combativeness, and even rage that go into the work of this couple are plainly visible in the quality of their creations.
Recent Exhibitions:
2008 Hang-Art. Saffré
Galerie La main qui parle « Momies ». Paris
Biz’Art-Biz’Art. Le Vaudioux
« Un Monde de Bruts ». St Sever du Moustier
L’Art en Marche, 10ème anniversaire. Lapalisse
Les Nouveaux Troubadours. St Sever du Moustier
Salon MAC Paris, Espace Champerret. Paris
"Outsider days", l’Art en Marche. Haarlem (Pays Bas)
2009 Centre Culturel Le Polaris, « Expressionnismes ». Corbas
Galerie Susi Brunner « Literacy for All ». Zurich
Galerie L’Art à Part. Ollioules
Ghyslaine and Sylvain Staelens exhibit their work permanently at:
Galleries• Gramercy 32 Fine Arts, New York
• Galerie Beatrice Soulie. Paris
• Galerie Susi Brunner. Zurich.
• L'Art a Part. Ollioules
Museums
• Musee de l’Art en Marche. Lapalisse
• Musee de l’Art en Marche. Hauterives
• Collection Ceres Franco. Lagrasse
• Musee de la Haute-Auvergne. St-Flour





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