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Joël Bartz
France

Joël Bartz (b. 1986) is an emerging French artist and designer whose practice lies at the intersection of sculpture, materiality, and light. Developed outside traditional academic channels, his career is grounded in a personal line of inquiry pursued consistently since 2015. Central to his creative process is the development and refinement of a technique he devised himself, utilizing raw clay and pulped paper. The result of nearly a decade of experimentation and meticulous craftsmanship, this process enables him to create a unique material that gives rise to one-of-a-kind lighting pieces. Each work reveals complex artistry, in which mastery of the material and exacting attention to finish play a pivotal role. Through this technique, Joël Bartz has developed a style that draws upon the legacy of biomorphic abstraction. He takes inspiration from the natural world and organic forms, reinterpreting them through an architectural lens to forge a distinctive, contemporary sculptural language.

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“I grew up in a mining town in Lorraine. My father, my grandfather, and his father before him all worked deep in the coal mines. Perhaps all those years spent underground gave my grandfather a love for the wild outdoors. I spent my childhood outside with him, far from the clamor of the city. We would crisscross the lakes of Lorraine, go fishing, or roam the forests in search of mushrooms and edible plants. Later, I became passionate about—among other things—the works of Gustav Klimt, the paintings of Hundertwasser, and the architecture of Gaudí. Gradually, as my artistic eye became more refined, my desire to create turned into an obsession. Winters in Lorraine are long; people retreat into the sanctuary of their homes, and every household strives to make its interior as inviting as possible. I have held onto that simple desire from my roots: to make a home’s interior feel warm and to bring a touch of the outdoors inside. In my new collection, I like to start with an idea and distill it—finding the natural architecture of its forms and capturing the essence of the design. Humans sometimes feel like strangers to nature. Yet, every human creation is born of the living world and continues the natural process in its own way. My work speaks to this paradox, but when my sculptures light up, they become an invitation to contemplation.”