Hanabi

2016

Hanabi is a Japanese word meaning both “fire flower” and “fireworks”. The idea is to harness the power of one material and the tension of that material confined inside another. Molten aluminium at 800° is poured into a porcelain vase. Under the thermal shock the vase explodes, and the aluminium bursts through its wall to set in the surrounding sand. It is a play between container — the vase — and content — the liquid, here molten metal. The confrontation of these two materials, these two states, these two temperatures is what creates the piece.

The vase cracks and splits; the molten aluminium passes through walls once impermeable and freezes into outgrowths. A frozen explosion. This vase from China, painted with a landscape, fuses with the expanding aluminium. The essence of life lies in transformation — the energy, the breath that makes this metamorphosis possible. The vase’s decoration — clouds, mountains, rivers — speaks of that ceaseless flux: clouds rise and erase the mountains, rivers flow and gather into lakes.

In this process the liquid aluminium extends the vase, explodes, then sets and crystallises. The sculptor’s work continues the painter’s: the landscape springs from the vase to spread into space.

An ever-evolving series.

2016_Hanabi, 2016, porcelaine et fonte d'aluminium, 33 x 33 x 33 cm--1-8

2016_Hanabi, 2016, porcelaine et fonte d'aluminium, 33 x 33 x 33 cm--

2016_Hanabi, 2016, porcelaine et fonte d'aluminium, 33 x 33 x 33 cm--01-2

2016_Hanabi, 2016, porcelaine et fonte d'aluminium, 33 x 33 x 33 cm--1-2

2016_Hanabi, 2016, porcelaine et fonte d'aluminium, 33 x 33 x 33 cm--1-9

2016_Hanabi, 2016, porcelaine et fonte d'aluminium, 33 x 33 x 33 cm--1-12

2016_Hanabi, 2016, porcelaine et fonte d'aluminium, 33 x 33 x 33 cm--1-11