Galerie Camy Sculpture
A contemporary view of Ancient Japan
CAMY is a French artist from Montpelier in the south of France. Following a first career in business management, and then art history studies, she discovered sculpture in 1995 which she has been fully dedicated to ever since. Over the years she has experienced with numerous materials while deepening the techniques of sculpture. Marble came early in her career as she worked from time to time in Italy at Carrara in the late 90’s. Clay is however her favorite medium due to its plasticity and malleability allowing for unlimited creativity. And then bronze… which she finds immensely satisfying. It has allowed her to play with light and choose rich and nuanced patinas which she excels in, applying them directly at the foundry.
A deep interest for Asia and particularly Japan which goes back to her childhood has been a major source of inspiration for her artwork from the beginning. In 2011 she spent time as an artist in residence at the Shigaraki Cultural Park in Japan. Rich and dense, this stay opened her to new techniques, approaches, and inspired her upon her return to begin her collection of unique life size kimono sculptures.
Her work is an invitation to an inner journey, instilling calm and introspection. Her style is to touch on what is essential with very few lines. She combines curved shapes and pronounced lines with no encumbering details and her sculptures often emanate small and subtle movements.
CAMY exhibits her work in her own gallery, CAMY SCULPTURE, in the town of Gordes in Provence. Her art has also been exhibited in various other galleries and exhibitions in France and abroad. Most recently, in November 2019, she held an exhibition in Paris entitled “Asia so far…and yet so close”.
Website: camy.fr/en/
Agent: christine.monfront@gmail.com
Tel: (33) 7 60 26 68 00
“Ancient or contemporary, simple or ceremonial, kimonos fascinate and inspire me.”
In creating her bronze ladies such as the “Belle de Kyoto” CAMY has looked back at ancient Japanese prints, she has delved into the tale of Genji to resurrect these court ladies, poets, belles, emerging from the rich and heavy folds of fabric of their traditional garments. They all express a refined and mysterious femininity.
With her collection of life size kimonos CAMY is now exploring the garment in a new way, no longer casting in the round but using a vertical flat presentation. For her “Summer Kimono” she played with the idea of a piece that would have gone through time keeping the traces of a bygone past such as the one of the samurais with their very specific armor.
Her sculptures of shoguns and samurais also play with the folds of the fabric but to convey a masculine world. “Shogun” in a pyramidal pose, solidly grounded, emanating strength and stability, beautifully links the past and the present.
In “Ressourcement” CAMY explores the age-old world of sumo wrestlers using the smoothness of the highly polished bronze to convey inner peace.
