The Mountains of Gilles Sage

by Marie Bruneau and Bertrand Genier

Familiar with the Pyrenees since his early childhood, Gilles Sage keeps coming back there to explore the Gavarnie massif. Each new trip is an opportunity for him to feed his photo library: "Today I have a database of more than 18,000 photos I browse frequently, dreaming of the next time ..."
There is another form of exploration which with the artist is familiar: the resources offered by digital and internet tools. “In order to get my next trip ready, I use 3D map app to get acquainted with the terrain before the walk... "
An accident quickly occurred ! “In 2018, 'Maps 3D' had a major bug: the relief of a portion of the map - a square of about 10 km per side - was missing. The base map, the contour lines, the captions were present, but the mountains seemed truncated: rivers and lakes leaped into the collapse. The summits were dripping, like Dali's melting clocks. "
The artist then sets out to give shape, in clay, to what is happening on his screen: "I model blocks at a scale of 1: 10,000. Since each block is designed separately from the previous ones, it does not quite fit with its neighbours, and level differences may appear. Despite everything, the landscape is recognisable, and it is possible to lose yourself in thoughts in the hollows and bumps of the ceramic... "
Let's summarize: detours, ricochets and re-remembering. Images generated and transmitted by extraordinarily complex technical operations are removed as a result of an accidental event, to finally give rise to hand-crafted forms in clay. They look so familiar that we could believe that they emerged from some ancient representation of the world...
Gilles Sage, born in 1993, studied art at the École supérieure des beaux-arts de Bordeaux.
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> Gilles Sage,
“ Mountains”, 2020-2021
Work in progress,
32 clay volumes, base 10 cm × 10 cm, variable height,
Courtesy Gilles Sage
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(#herebeginsthepathofthemountains)

February 2021