Philippe Buil

Philippe Buil works in bronze and steel. He developed a way of making metal lace. He sculpts the form, takes a foundry sand mould, then melts the metal and lets it fall drop by drop. The gaps between the drops decide what is solid and what is open. Each piece is then brushed and varnished. No two are the same. Every sculpture is signed, and comes with a certificate of authenticity. He calls the method dripping in metal. The metal runs, almost by chance, and the body is in it as much as the plan. Hollows and solids, accidents of light and shadow, turn the lace into something the viewer finishes. A personal story collects on it, the way silt collects in a river. The work has no fixed ending. That is the point.