Curated by Lexing Zhang
Metamorphosis
Dorian Renard
Sergio Storel
5 December 2024 – 15 January 2025
“I saw an angel in the marble and carved it until I set him free.” -Michelangelo
LOY Contemporary Art Gallery Singapore is pleased to announce the opening of its new exhibit “Metamorphosis”. This project aligns with the growing dynamism of Singapore on the international art scene while remaining faithful to the gallery’s desire to reach an increasingly diverse audience.
The exhibition on 5 December 2024 at LOY Gallery / Singapore Tanglin Road, titled “Metamorphosis” proposes a trans-historical dialogue between French designer Dorian Renard and the late Italian sculptor Sergio Storel. The exhibition presents a selection of works highlighting the connections and different visions of the two artists, enhanced by the scenographic intervention of various renown artists, writers and philosophers.
Sergio Storel (1927- 2017) a French-Italian sculptor, painter, who made his career in France. He studied at the academy of Beaux-arts in Venice. He moved to Paris in 1958, eager to continue his education in the major artistic center. The following year, he enrolled in the Ecole des Beaux-Arts. Sergio was deeply inspired by Greek and Roman classics yet rebelled against its idealized forms. His elegant geometric volumes reexamine representation, often employing ovoid and simplistic shapes to evoke movement, repose, or spiritual reflection. His work has been the subject of solo shows at the Rodin Museum, Paris; the Museum of Modern Art, Paris; the Museum Constant Permeke, Jabbeke, Belgium; and the Chartres Museum, Chartres, France. His work is the permanent collection of the Smithsonian Museum in Washington D.C. and the Museum of Modern Art, Ostend, Belgium.
At the entrance of the exhibition, a bust of a woman in an upright pose with an elongated neck that is reminiscent of Nefertiti or Jeanne of Modigliani. Her open mouth is clearly uttering a certain intriguing message, “Pythia”, title given by the artist, was the title of the high priestess of the Temple of Apolloat Delphi. She specifically served as its oracle and was known as the Oracle of Delphi. What interests Sergio is the symbolic commentary and the life he breathed into his preferred material, bronze and steel.
Dorian Renard is a French designer based in Marseille, France. He developed a practice that oscillates between a fascination for materials and their mediated meanings. Dorian graduated from the prestigious Design Academy of Eindhoven and has recently collaborated with brands, such as Rimova and Porsche.
Through a sculptural and experimental approach, Dorian’s work challenges our perception of materiality in a sensitive yet conscious way. Driven by an exploration of the subversive use of crafting techniques, he has developed a distinct language that bears the signs of being shaped by human hands.
The two artists, seemingly at opposite ends of the spectrum, approached the sculpture through very different paths. This unexpected point of convergence highlights a fundamental similarity at the heart of their practice: the search for transformation - both pictorial and conceptual.
In Storel’s work, this pursuit seems to manifest in rigor, balance, and elegance: representation progressively reduces to abstract forms, yet the spirit of the figure is gaining a stronger presence. On the contrary, Renard confronts our conventional notion of the banal material plastic, shaping it into exquisite organic life forms. “Blooming Season” exceeds conventional material limits, and the crafted blossoms are virtuosic in precision.
Through their artistic research, both have transcended the limits of techniques and materials, pushing the boundaries of representation to capture the essence of objective and sometimes spirits.