Léo Caillard
Marble worker
Paris, France
In conversation with Time
- Léo carves sculptures and busts that challenge traditional marble portrayals
- His work involves research on history, materials and modern tools
- He defines his creative approach as 'active curiosity'
For as long as he can remember, Léo Caillard has been fascinated by Time. As a child, he recalls being captivated by the sculptures in the Louvre, aware that they had spanned two or three thousand years of history. Having initially pursued a scientific path to understand this concept, he finally turned to craftsmanship and art, engaging in his own dialogue with time. Mostly self-taught, Léo combines his manual expertise with the use of modern, scientific tools to reimagine traditional marble carving. "I use aeronautical software to study how stone would move if it were liquid," he explains. In doing so, he discovers new possibilities for carvable designs. Bridging Antiquity and modernism, Léo's sculptures subtly play with creating opposing impressions: solid and liquid, heavy and light, strong and fragile.
INTERVIEW
I try to create sculptures that engage with our time, while also making timeless objects, works that exist beyond space and time, objects that could be eternal. I often imagine that, two thousand years from now, one of my sculptures might be unearthed during an archaeological excavation, and stand as a reflection of our current era.
I am very curious about and open to other people's creations. Whenever I come across something beautiful, whether in architecture, furniture or literature, I note it down in a notebook that gradually fills with shapes and ideas. I return to it regularly, and after a few months, I begin to see which ideas keep coming back, which ones stand the test of time.
After the initial hammer work, which removes most of the material, the stage I enjoy most is the final stage of refinement, when I use rotary tools such as Dremels. These are tools that scrape the stone rather than striking it, allowing me to achieve greater complexity in the form.
Accepting failure. As craftspeople and artists, we dream of beauty, of creating something emotionally powerful. But beauty is something we can only approach, without ever truly reaching it. It is like the fingers in Michelangelo's Sistine Chapel: what we create is never quite as beautiful as what we imagined. Accepting that craft, art and beauty are an unattainable quest can be frustrating, but it is also what makes me want to start again, to look to tomorrow and keep going further.
Léo Caillard
Marble worker
Paris, France
ADDRESS
Address upon request, Paris, France
AVAILABILITY
By appointment only
LANGUAGES
French, English
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