HAUSEY- LEPLAT      Sculptures

 
 
Hausey-Leplat was born in Normandy in 1950.
 
He has never left this region where he still lives and works today.
 
After studying industrial design he gave up his first job in an architectural firm. He promptly gave into the temptation of a proposition to restore a Norman castle whose architecture was splendid but whose condition was greatly dilapidated. He discovered there the first passion of his working life.
 
Through this work, which would last 22 years, he learned multitude of artistic skills by performing highly delicate work.
 
At the same time, in his free hours, it was his pleasure to paint watercolours and draw. Once the castle was completely restored, he undertook the reconstruction of a small Norman farm for himself, using material salvaged from ruins.

Here he quickly discovered a second passion and began to focus his interest on the animal-universe. Very interested in contemporary art, he became a regular visitor to the centre of art in Paris and developed his own creative technique which marries his taste for animal subjects and his deep interest in contemporary forms of expression coming from art brut.
 
For each selected animal subject, Hausey-Leplat starts by studying and observing the animal in its natural habitat. He takes a lot of photographs and does numerous drawings. When he is ready he sets all this paperwork aside.
 
At the first stage he constructs a basic silhouette of the model in metal which establishes the shape and makes the piece sturdy.
 
The slow labour of creation starts then, with the addition of successive layers of plaster.
 
Now is the most vital moment for delivering the full account of the animal’s power and seizing a fleeting position.
 
The sculpture is then covered with fabrics taken from jute sacks of different origins: old sacks used for the cider-apple harvest and also any kind of old sack from a farm and whatever he can find from anywhere else.
 
His extremely precise work doesn’t, however, proceed from direct measurements. He arrives at a comprehensive tactile knowledge of his animals through preliminary studies, his own sketches and photographs.
 
At the next stage his work is a blend of memory and sensibility.
 
His subjects, farm animals, pets or wild animals are all chosen for their powerful musculature which the artist’s own method brings out in striking fashion.
 
He often makes use of printed traces which remain on the fabric. The sections of material are assembled and stitched together thus giving an effect of strong and unexpected contrast.
 
Mostly single pieces, the animals can also be presented as a pair or occasionally a large group like the herd of wild pigs, including 18 models, whose effect realistic and primitive is gripping.
 
His great sensitivity, his exact knowledge of animal anatomy, which the modeling of his sculptures witnesses, lead us easily into his work’s primitive and very contemporary universe .
 
A kind of magic of communication similar to that of African masks and which delivers intensely emotional messages, is established.