Coraux Fractals 1 by Miguel Chevalier

Saint-Tropez Couleur Bleu is a unique event in France merging Culture, Heritage and Environment. This event aims at embellishing Saint-Tropez’s Lighthouse with a major artwork in order to transform it into a “Manifeste de couleur” (Color Manifesto), in favor of the Oceans.

Sensitive to this theme, the sailor Maud Fontenoy is the patron of this colourful and meaningful event and North Sails the main partner. “Coraux Fractals 1” is a canvas that mixes printed and hand-painted elements with fluorescent colours. Corals represent an great territory for the imagination. Miguel Chevalier revisits the extraordinary shapes through the digital prism.

“Coraux Fractals 1” represents massive corals that have imprinted the lighthouse as their substrate. An underwater reef with multiple branching structures and a fractal topology splits off from a blue gradient background. At night, Miguel Chevalier has imagined a illumination that transforms the colours of the artwork using UV spotlights to bring out the fluorescent colours.

This coral reef of disproportionate shapes becomes luminescent, reflecting with bioluminescence (production and emission of light by living organisms), an effect common in marine animals from the deep sea, out of the reach of sunlight. “Coraux Fractals 1” explores our relationship with the living, the visible and the invisible.

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It addresses these fragile ecosystems, which are some of the most threatened in the world whilst being home to a diversity which must be preserved. It seeks to recreate the conditions for symbiosis between human and nature. In parallel to this event, Linda and Guy Pieters Foundation presents the exhibition “Corauxllages – Miguel Chevalier” until 29th of August 2021.

The artist presents more than thirty news artworks using the laser cut technology and glued paper and inspired by the marine universe and corals. The association of these plots and lines evoke in turn coral reefs, algae trees, or even blood vessels or neural networks. These very graphic and vividly colored collages are a tribute to Matisse’s “papiers collées” (cut-outs). Source by Miguel Chevalier.

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Sensitive to this theme, the sailor Maud Fontenoy is the patron of this colourful and meaningful event and North Sails the main partner. “Coraux Fractals 1” is a canvas that mixes printed and hand-painted elements with fluorescent colours. Corals represent an great territory for the imagination. Miguel Chevalier revisits the extraordinary shapes through the digital prism.

“Coraux Fractals 1” represents massive corals that have imprinted the lighthouse as their substrate. An underwater reef with multiple branching structures and a fractal topology splits off from a blue gradient background. At night, Miguel Chevalier has imagined a illumination that transforms the colours of the artwork using UV spotlights to bring out the fluorescent colours.

This coral reef of disproportionate shapes becomes luminescent, reflecting with bioluminescence (production and emission of light by living organisms), an effect common in marine animals from the deep sea, out of the reach of sunlight. “Coraux Fractals 1” explores our relationship with the living, the visible and the invisible.

It addresses these fragile ecosystems, which are some of the most threatened in the world whilst being home to a diversity which must be preserved. It seeks to recreate the conditions for symbiosis between human and nature. In parallel to this event, Linda and Guy Pieters Foundation presents the exhibition “Corauxllages – Miguel Chevalier” until 29th of August 2021.

The artist presents more than thirty news artworks using the laser cut technology and glued paper and inspired by the marine universe and corals. The association of these plots and lines evoke in turn coral reefs, algae trees, or even blood vessels or neural networks. These very graphic and vividly colored collages are a tribute to Matisse’s “papiers collées” (cut-outs). Source by Miguel Chevalier.

Location: Saint-Tropez lighthouse
Artist: Miguel Chevalier
Partners : Ville de Saint-Tropez, Port de Saint-Tropez,
North Sails, Fondation Linda et Guy Pieters, Hôtel de Paris Saint-Tropez
Painting of the corals : Olivier Costa
Event: Fourth edition of Saint-Tropez Couleur Bleu created by Agnès Bouquet
Date: 12th of June – 4th of November 2021
Photographs: Marc de Delley, Courtesy of Miguel Chevalier
Video: Claude Mossessian