Midnight, Sea of Time
Galería Mascota is pleased to present Loup Sarion work. Midnight, Sea of Time
On the rocky shore, a stone is licked by the flow of the waves:
with each encounter, a layer is removed, salt is left behind;
the rock's gently transformed shape is a vestige of this exchange.
This material marking that allows a glimpse of a previous interaction is present throughout Midnight, Sea of Time. Upon arriving, we are met with a spectral vitrine work of two folded shirts, Skin of us. With its multiple layers of plexiglass and resin, undulating folds that echo where fabric once draped over a body, the transparent work has a photographic quality that gently captures the weight of everyday rituals.
A soft bubbling sound draws us into the room to witness El Soñador - a fountainwork of pants cast in concrete - deep in his reverie. From the opening of a bronze jar, indented with the imprints of the artist's hands, water emerges for a brief encounter with the air, only to disappear through the waist, returning again to its hidden source. The legs bear a pale red patina, transferred from the leather, and the ridges and folds hold the trace of long forgotten movements. The brutalist presence of the concrete is contrasted by the softness of the scene: the dreamer allowing himself to dissolve into a world of fluidity — a meditative state of water endlessly flowing.
We realize we are not alone in our observation - around us, a group of four aluminum noses, protruding from the wall, voyeuristically watch over the nocturnal scene and entice us to approach them, to become part of their reflective skin, if only fleetingly.
As we wander into the neighboring room, we unexpectedly encounter our image in Lava Screen, a byobu with four pan-elled mirrors whose surface has been partly stripped by a libidinal eruption. The diaphanous gaps interrupting our reflection reveal the room behind the screens. If a mirror, as Clarice Lispector writes, is the deepest space that exists, here, with its reflection relegated to the foreground, its depth is both enhanced and diminished, its mystery rendered transparent.
We turn to directly face the three works behind us, each composed of different textures of leather, from which emerge the outlined forms of unexpected objects - bricks, folded shirts, broken bones - forming enigmatic configurations that do not so much tell their story as distantly evoke, like a faint memory, their underlying essence. Denying any illustrative purpose, these works take the path away from figuration that Gilles Deleuze called la sensation, acting immediately on the nervous system, striking the flesh, leaving their mark in us without directly stirring thought. We not only feel the sensation overcome us, we become it, and from this reaction spring sensual landscapes previously unknown to us. Try to grasp them, however, and they disband.
These sensual interactions leave a mark on us, imbuing their fragrance in the fountains of our subconscious, ready to emerge in another form.
Gerardo Bandera
Loup Sarion (1987, Toulouse ) lives and works in New York. He studied at the école nationale supérieure des Beaux Arts in Paris from 2010 to 2015 and attened the Cooper Union School of Art of new York in 2013.
His sculptures blur the line between the body and object, intimacy and abstraction. His creative process often begins with clumsy sketches, which are then enlarged and transformed into sculptural forms—whether noses, hats, or luminous sculptures reminiscent of bones. Through his works, Sarion delves into intimate narratives and androgyny, playing with the interplay of concave and convex shapes.
His materials, often imbued with history, reflect his obsession with past lives: worn belts transformed into sinuous bas-reliefs, or noses sculpted from beeswax or polished aluminum, embodying portraits of strangers, lovers and anonymous figures encountered in the city or on the subway. He has always believed that a single facial feature is enough to tell an entire story.
Neither masculine nor feminine, the nose holds a unique place at the center of the face, charged with eroticism, grace, and awkwardness. It presents a world of projection—every bump, pore, and curve revealing something about its owner. Sarion captures intimacy and imperfections through tactile forms that engage with the body, architecture, and layers of human history, creating „mille-feuilles“ where geological processes and human traces intertwine.