Jean-Michel Othoniel
Born 1964 in Saint-Étienne (France), lives and works in Paris (France)

The works of Jean-Michel Othoniel, with their sense of preciousness and their baroque style, have an other-worldly visual appeal. His sculptures and installations make extensive use of blown glass, whose physical and reflective properties have made it his material of choice. Gigantic necklaces, crowns, and canopied beds with evocative shapes and shimmering colours diffracting the light conjure up fictional narratives that interact with the setting and draw the viewer into a dreamlike fairytale world, while at the same time challenging the frontiers between male and female, vegetable and mineral, artificial and natural. An enigmatic sculpture covered in gold leaf, Jean-Michel Othoniel’s “Collier doré” [Golden Necklace] presents itself as a forbidden fruit, somewhere between a jewel and an architectural feature. The artist has appropriated the traditional form of the necklace as a piece of jewellery, making the sculpture out of beads of different sizes pierced lengthwise, creating an ambivalent object that is both ornamental and fragile-looking. As if hanging from an invisible thread, it sits lightly on a mirrored plaque that reflects its verticality. This oversized iconic object is at once majestic, serene and timeless.