Jérémy Berton works with objects of everyday life and reinvents them to question reality and its representations. Through a meticulous and systematic approach, he transposes tables, brooms, easels and umbrellas onto a new poetic dimension. His sculptures are a subtle mixture of compositions, balance, and tricks of scale and illusion that manage to catch the viewer’s eye and overturn their perspective. The humor that characterises his works comes from intertwining the thoughtful approach and the sharp, creative, unexpected mode the artist uses to re-elaborate the objects of his study.
Berton’s artistic approach originates in his passion for drawing, in studying surfaces, perception and illusion. His dynamic and colourful universe manages to catch images to transform and reactivate them in space, with humor, lightness and accuracy. Sculpture becomes a means to make the objects bigger and clearer in reality.
For the In Sesto Prize the artist exhibits three works, which were all created in 2021 and share a common theme: the human being. Starting with an analysis of the “inner self”, Berton explores the never-ending human scheme of rising to a higher social status, while not always being respectful of nature and other living beings. The sculpture series Your true self is a false mirror originated from the intangible world and how we psychologically and magically refer to the mirror, a household object. The pattern on the elliptical shapes, recalling human-like dimensions, confers a vibrant stylised reflection on the resin surface; while the mirrors, resembling portholes on a wall, offer empty images to the viewers.
Hope is inspired by a photograph of unknown origins which shows the world’s largest diamonds and questions the representation of their economic value. The plaster blocks refer to the synthesized appearance of an armored truck, which has a resin hand on it that gives us, or takes away, the diamonds. Ironically, “hope” is the name of one of the encrusted diamonds.
The enigmatic sculpture Loot is a mask, possibly an accessory of thievery and guarding, which is floating on a pile of coins of abandoned loot. The small composition suggests an epic robbery.
Alice Debianchi
