Having worked first with granite in his native French department of the Corrèze between 1975 and 1980, Yves Guérin decides then to draw inspiration from the ancestral forge to create shapes with railways and metallic bars. Initially used as a concept, he gives them a new orientation, modelling it.
This physical relationship is essential to the artist: “To me, material is divine. It is possible thanks to it to question oneself about infinity.” The rails have a symbolic content which evokes the “archetype of the industrial world” - to quote the artist, and the transport, the freedom and the possibilities implied with it. This kind of hippocampus combines the artisan roughness and a delicate trace, performing balance feat as if metal wasn’t metal.
