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Mathilde Caylou, Frozen river, 2017
crystal, varnish, minerals, 180x50x5cm
photo credits: GC / Palinsesti 2017
Mathilde Caylou
Mathilde Caylou (b. 1985) has chosen Alsace as the place to develop her research on the representation of rural territory and landscape.
Starting from extraction, samples, and molds of the agricultural soil, Caylou realizes sculptures and installations made of glass and crystal which are poured and swelled in the same irregular molds while they are still molten.
During this process the soil reacts with the heat and chemically interacts with the melted glass, producing ripples, coloured reflections and various degrees of opacity that change considerably according to the type of manufacture.
This territory map is conceptually founded on the same nature as glass, whose principal component, silica, is extracted from the ground to become a transparent and mysterious material.
In the same way, the landscapes produced by Caylou originate from the ground and, moving away from the cold photographic reproduction, they become abstract and suggestive representations of the land.
Frozen River
My artistic research is focused on places and the landscape; hence I chose to develop my own draft on the river Tagliamento. I am fascinated by the variable width of the riverbed, the reverberation of the rocks and, at the same time, the river’s complex and dynamic flow that transports the stones and cuts through the mountains and a lake which had once been a glacier. Looking from the top down, the river demarcates the land as it sinuously twists and turns from the Alps down to the Adriatic Sea.
Since this river streams from the mountains and the glaciers, my purpose is to create a crystal river which shall be based on the proportions, the structure and the trajectory of the Tagliamento as seen from a satellite-based perspective of the territory. Similar to glass, crystal appears as a solid-liquid material which, just like ice, liquefies and coagulates within a certain temperature range. Coloured minerals will be inset in the transparent crystal to portray those rocks and sediments which are transported by the Tagliamento.
Mathilde Caylou
