Jacqueline Kelen

Only the heroic gesture drives the artist. This is particularly true of the sculptor. The reason for this lies less in the «hard desire to endure» of which the poet Paul Éluard writes than in the sheer necessity, day after day, with patience and tenacity, using one’s whole body, to confront the hard and dense material, to confront reality as it resists, to confront the world’s opacity or depth.

In more than thirty five years spent carving granite and diabase, Eric Théret has placed less emphasis on the titanic nature of the task than on the lofty and solitary practice of sculpture as a form of asceticism: tearing through stone as though with bare hands, leaving his mark on close to impenetrable material, the artist confronts his own self, joyfully filing and stripping himself down.

Though Eric Théret does not claim to be working towards eternity, he nevertheless displays a taste for the monumental. Columns stand tall against the sky; passing bodies leave indelible imprints on hard stone – a massive pebble, clenched by a human fist, thus retains the trace of this fabulous embrace.

All and every stone, smooth or rough, calls for caressing touch and seeks to hold it. Carving rebellious stone is akin to lovemaking; by dint of willpower and great energy, by the grace of inspired gestures, recalcitrant material turns into song. Or perhaps sculpture is petrified music…

And the self must hold great violence and stubborn joy in order to, one day, tune into the mineral wisdom of the stone and reach the calm depth of things laid bare.