Art is all about ideas borne out of the imagination of the most fertile kind. And Vincent Leroy, a contemporary French artist based in Paris, France, has dollops of it. Just one look at his kinetic sculptures is enough to get anyone fascinated.
Leroy’s sculptures are so well thought out that they alter the surrounding environment. Just sample his creations, such as ‘boreal halo’ that hovers above the heads of its viewers or the ‘slow echo’ installation that emulates clouds of floating glass or the enormous mirrored disk within the Paris’ Grand Palais.
One of Leroy’s outstanding works is the ‘slow drop’ project that comprises an installation in motion under the bridge of Pont de Bir-hakeim in Paris. Its skillful and light suspension aims to reflect its environment, as it hangs from the bridge of the era gone past. He has deliberately not made the giant bubble spherical to depict the distorted and dreamlike image of the city.
Leroy usually explores the optics and light in his large-scale installations. This is remarkably showcased in his ‘slow lens’ project, where he has installed various transparent, translucent and curved lenses in various locations around Paris and also on the highways. The idea is to make the lenses rotate to distort the landscape from the viewer’s perspective in a psychedelic way.
Born in 1968 in Avranches, France, Leroy works in Paris. He graduated from the Ecole Nationale Supérieure de Creation Industrielle in Paris. His inspiration is movement and repetition, and a haunting and fascinating rhythm.
He’s represented by Denise René Gallery in Paris. He states about his work at the gallery’s website, thus, “Simple movements are always the basis of my work, without being in search of cutting-edge technology. Ten years ago, my pieces were more mechanical, the technology was more present, more visible. Today, the movement is more fluid, more natural. It’s necessary to manage to mix and not to oppose. It’s difficult to work but so gratifying. We must capture the unexpected and then analyze it in order to exploit it and integrate it into the works.”
Vincent Leroy: Website | Instagram