PIERRE BONNEFILLE - Coup d'Éclat Mineral

A year of exciting and prolific collaborations with Pierre Bonnefille has allowed a professional relationship to evolve into a sincere friendship.

It all began in London, before crossing the oceans for Dubai Design Days in March, and more recently Collective Art Fair in New York. The Leclaireur team and Studio Bonnefille have joined forces to unveil, among other pieces, the Meditation Room, an installation - indeed a sacred space - where art and light meet to create a room where time stands still.

On these occasions, Pierre Bonnefille exhibited the furniture Metamorphosis, Bronze Paintings and Furoshiki Drawings, inspired by the local art of folding and wrapping, demanding and restoring a ritual meticulousness.

The Master of Art is known for his unique approach to color and materials, and for sculpting light in two dimensions. The artist draws his inspiration from his travels, the landscapes that cross his path, nature and life itself, which he compiles in notebooks, watercolors and his memories, to better transpose the moments and feelings, using mineral powders or carbon, in the works he will produce a month, sometimes a year later.

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Leclaireur: What were your inspirations for this "Bronze Box"?

Pierre Bonnefille: My work is about water, reflection, vibrations: the light of water, the sun and the moon on water. A year ago, I presented the exhibition "Bronze" in Paris, then in Bangkok. For PAD London, it is an installation, a "special space" that invites reflection and meditation.

L: Can we imagine a sound that would accompany this meditation?

PB: Certainly. One can also interpret the space as he wishes. For example, I made a piece like this for a client. She lights it up and simply puts a candle in it.

L: Is this installation an echo of the furniture collection you are also presenting?

PB: I bought a collection of copper ores from Africa, dating back to the 1930s, from 50 mines in the region. On the furniture I created, the geometry of the forms is in its native state.

L: Travel plays a role in your creative process.

PB: It is of paramount importance to me. They allow the deployment of all my curiosity, and my rereading of nature. Leaves, bark, rock, sand... My goal is to transform and revive natural elements. To go from geology to geometry...

The "Polygon" coffee table, for example, is a dodecahedron, that is to say 12 faces, each cut in a different way, so that they always take the light in a unique way.

L: Calligraphy, too, is an important part of your work.

PB: Absolutely, I work in different forms of palimpsests. I write a sentence, which I rewrite over the previous sentence, again and again until the text disappears through graphic superimposition. The sentence that is written on the bench, at the PAD, is the following: "Secret words are heard, passed from mouth to mouth and from mouth to ear". This bench is thus built on a secret.

L: What about interior design?

PB : I work for private clients and some luxury brands. At the moment, I am working on the material for the design of the Cartier boutiques. Recently, I also produced a wall composition for the new Loro Piana boutique. It is a superposition of fabric fragments.

L: Your work can also be found in the kitchen of Leclaireur Hérold...

PB : The kitchen is a very subdued place, where there is a lot of fluidity and escape. I worked for a year on this project. I also worked with Armand Hadida on this PAD scenography. My goal was to make a space dedicated to kinetic pieces and a space for my Bronze installation. I really like this space. It gives what I call a "divine light" to the faces of the people in it, between gold and silver. I want this room to have a memory of how it feels to face the sun at a certain time of the day.