Elodie, 2023

Alain Mandon  

Alain Mandon presents himself as a self-taught artist. First a painter and then a sculptor, he created his first sculpture 5 years ago now, driven by his wife's breast cancer (ablation then breast reconstruction). Unable to accept himself in his new physique, he creates a first bust made from the molding of her body, wishing to show her her beauty in broad daylight. A first success both psychologically for his wife and artistically, which will consolidate him to realize other pieces with this technique.

Since then, he has devoted a large part of his work to the creation of sculpted busts representing fragments of almost essentially female bodies. Working from real models, he first makes a plaster cast and then uses it to shape his sculptures in the projection of molten tin.

Alain Mandon is particularly attracted by the raw aspect of materials such as pigments, sand, resin, concrete, but also metal in general and pewter in particular, which over time has become his favorite material. The artist will work with the material in such a way as to give them an uneven effect as if they had been eaten away by time, which gives an almost antique aspect to his sculptures, like relics that have survived the centuries.