Philippe Pollet
Wood Sculptor, Samana
From his youth in France, painting and sculpture are his passion... but in fact it becomes his main activity when he settled in Guadeloupe, in 1997.
Then alternating periods of creation and exhibitions in Guadeloupe,
France, St. Barth...
Then he set sails for three years between Central America to the United States... from Cartagena to New York... he went to the discovery of other artists, other cultures, other forms of art... He was also able to observe nature in motion, his greatest source of inspiration.
Until he dropped anchor in the bay of Samana in the Dominican Republic... that’s the lightning strike... obvious to him... that's where he wants to install his new studio !
This enchanted island, the kindness of Dominican people seduced him and, moreover, this country offers him a prodigious range of wood species: Mahogany, Grigri, Cabirma, Cedar, Guayacan, Roble, Acacia, Cigua... Because, again and again, the wood is his favorite material: natural element, alive, with innumerable and infinite possibilities.
For him, carving wood is dreaming in three dimensions... it's charming both sight and touch, and even smell... his inspiration comes alive in living matter. His research begins with finding the pieces of wood who speak to him through their veins, their nodes, their fibers, their colors... So settled in his mind the image of his next piece, so clearly that he could work eyes closed. The exchange with the wood then is engaged and takes the form of a conversation that will stop only once the sculpture is finished. Time stops, the dialogue with the material begins: assembly, paste, build, dig, planing, sanding, polishing... to give life and form.
Exhibition of his art is also necessary to create. He needs to meet, exchange and share, then to go back, serene, in his studio in Samana for new creations.
