Nicolas Deshayes, Bubbles Underfoot 2015
Nicolas Deshayes regularly uses vacuum-forming in the creation of his sculptures, a technique that melts and stamps sheet plastic over hard moulds. “It is a process widely used to mass-produce things like bus seats, coffee cups and fridge interiors, all elements that have an ergonomic relationship to the human body”, he explains. “I make 50% of my work out of various regional industrial estates, using these specialist manufacturing processes; as well as vacum-forming there is also anodizing and aluminium casting". With his sculptures and installations, Deshayes examines the antiseptic connotations of plastic and its applications in the real world. He creates skin-like forms that operate in a transitional state between liquid and solid, seduction and repulsion. What looks real often turns out to be artificial and vice versa, while some works blur the lines so deftly that the distinctions are unclear.
Deshayes’ first edition for Counter started with a trip to the fishmonger at Newlyn Fish Market, whilst on his residency at Tate St Ives. He bought a number of octopi which he cast into coloured foam and then vacuum-formed to create rectangular wall-based sculptures. Arranged in combinations of two, they ooze and stretch out of the surface of the plastic (think David Cronenberg’s Videodrome) acting as visceral musings on the industrial versus the bodily. Each work comes ready to hang in one of the artist's trade mark powder coated frames.
Medium: Vacuum-formed plastic, polyurethane foam, powdercoated aluminium
Size: 74 x 50 x 7 cm (29 x 19.5 x 3 in)
Edition of 30 unique works
Signed, numbered and dated on reverse
Price: €2,600.00
The very last few works are available at Counter Editions
