Photo Ellinor Stigle
Sambre will be making not only his American Debut this week at Catherine Ahnell Gallery in New York, but also his first exhibition that will involve work for sale. That usually goes without saying when exhibiting new work, but Sambre has been able to focus his work up until this moment on insitu installations. The Parisian artist who started working on the streets as a graffiti artist quickly transformed his mark to transcend beyond murals and progressed towards sculpture and installation. More specifically Sambre has focused a recent body of work utilizing wood and reclaimed wood from the same locations he is installing in. Sometimes invited as an artist in recent projects taking complete rooms and transforming them with their own reclaimed remnants, Sambre reinvents the space. Deconstructing what once was a room with real memory and transforming into a living embodiment of its own history and one remade. It will be interesting to see how Sambre is able to bridge this concept in the gallery space with work that instead of being left to be taken or destroyed will now live yet another life past imminent destruction. We strongly suggest you stop by the Gallery and see what Sambre has in story for New York.
GF
Growing up in the countryside of Ardèche, France, SAMBRE embarked on a creative quest early on in life. Experimenting with different materials, sculpture, drawing and painting caught his attention. Wood sculpture studies started to form his artistic path as he discovered the Parisian street art movement of the 2000s and the forum of urban art allowed him an outlet for freedom of expression. The power of the ephemeral, the intensity and importance of a creation that would soon disappear or change form; these themes would come to have a great impact of his future work.
SAMBRE started to fuse his sculpture work into place-specific projects while a member of the Parisian urban art collective 1984. As an invited artist, he has worked with numerous sites and abandoned spaces around the world. His artistic process begins with reorganizing the original contents of a site, modifying the composition of preexisting items. SAMBRE then builds three dimensional structures of recollected material within the space. Soon, a calculated composition takes form that is constantly reevaluated throughout the artistic process. SAMBRE’s work is often described as the balance between organization and chaos. It is as if his different materials are thrown up in the air and settle into the spot where they truly belong.
SAMBRE’s humble approach of working with recycled material allows the receiver to relate to and even recognize specific parts of a more abstract construction. It suggests a new perspective of an object, of time or of a former concept as the material comes to the end of its lifecycle.
By working with volume and changing the way a body interacts with a specific space, SAMBRE impacts the participant mentally, visually and physically. His work encourages the receiver to travel beyond expectations. It channels the current of time into an experience of the space and materials’ history.
SAMBRE was part of the acclaimed Paris art project Les Bains in 2013.The project was curated by Magda Danysz and showcased a selection of today’s most innovative urban artists.
RSVP: info@catherineahnellgallery.com Exhibition SEPT 11- OCT 12
66 Grand Street #1, NY-SoHo www.catherineahnellgallery.com
