Primitive

A poetic interpretation of satellite images observing the zones of destruction of primary forests.

The repetitive patterns of deforestation — these motifs — become here an aesthetic structure, translated into sculptures made from trees cut down in the 1970s in the artist’s childhood garden, victims of disease.

Cyril de Commarque explores the notion of the primitive not as something archaic, but as a return to the essential, to the childhood of the world, to the first bonds of life.

These forests symbolically embody the last possible image of a harmonious coexistence, not only among humans, but among all forms of life — trees, soils, stones, climates.

The primeval forest thus becomes a space of relationships: a collective organism in which every element, visible or invisible, participates in the same breath.

Yet this breath paradoxically collides with the primitive behaviors of contemporary capitalism, which fragments, extracts, and uproots.

Within this tension, the creation of each work becomes an experience of coexistence — a dialogue between the artist, the machine, and matter itself.

To sculpt, de Commarque first entrusts the precision of the gesture to an industrial robot, Kuka, which shapes about 60% of each piece.

The artist then takes over, slowly completing the form, restoring a direct relationship between body, wood, and world.

This juxtaposition of the mechanical and the organic embodies the pivotal moment we are living — one in which technology redefines our relationship with the living.

By confronting the machine and the forest, the artist invites us to rethink our capacity to inhabit the Earth, and to recover a sense of balance with the world that sustains us.

Primitive was exposed at Palazzo Esposizioni Roma 2024/5 (solo show), At Royal Academy of Art, London 2021 (group show), at Saatchi Gallery, London 2019/20, solo show.