"My aspiration was to create the sculptures wherein disciplines and improvisations intertwine. From utilitarian essence to lyrical essence. From tranquil repose to kinetic symphony, revealing the harmonious melody within spatial dimensions."

– Laurent Martin “Lo”

HONG KONG MAY 2024 — 10 Chancery Lane Gallery is proud to present bamboo sculptor Laurent Martin “Lo” with a solo exhibition in Hong Kong entitled “Celestial Equilibrium”. The exhibition runs from May 23 - July 20, 2024 to also coincide with The French May. Notably, the artist will be personally present in Hong Kong to attend the exhibition's opening.

Laurent Martin "Lo" (b. 1955, France, lives and works in Spain) is a visionary French artist who deftly manipulates bamboo to create breath-taking sculptures that float or balance with an otherworldly grace. His deep understanding of bamboo's inherent qualities, combined with his keen exploration of tension, balance, and movement, results in a body of work that is both visually captivating and conceptually rich. With each sculpture, Lo invites viewers to embark on a sensory journey, immersing themselves in the delicate interplay of materials, light, and air. Through his dedication to advancing his practice and pushing the boundaries of his chosen medium, Lo has emerged as a trailblazer in the realm of mobile sculpture, reimagining the possibilities of contemporary art.

In the exhibition, Laurent Martin "Lo" invites us into the celestial realm, where his poetic mobile sculptures become the universe of planets and stars in a dance of flowing objects. His sculptures embody a captivating interplay of forces, achieving a remarkably fragile equilibrium. Guided by the breeze, these pieces gracefully sway and cast enchanting shadows that dance upon the walls.

Gallery director Katie de Tilly states, “Lo’s work embraces the essence of all life as one. We experience his works through feeling rather than thinking. He is a truly committed artist who explores the depths of the natural material of bamboo with a skill that is both intuitive and mastered. Throughout the world craftsmen work wonders with bamboo and “Lo” has elevated it to a contemporary art form of the highest distinction. And we feel his passion.”

Through years of observation and studying of this amazing plant of bamboo, Lo has come to understand its multitude of possibilities. His creativity is thus born out of his learned skills and understanding of his material. His artistic palette is within the physical and sensorial virtues of bamboo: it’s very sophisticated organic structure, but also its energy and spirituality. Establishing an intimate dialogue with bamboo, “Lo” experiments with its flexibility, resistance, density, lightness, mathematics and poetry, a language that allows him to combine both tension and compression, creating sculptures based on movement and balance. His work seems to defy

gravity and levitate. His structures swing, drawing curves and harmony in the air. Compositions that take over the space and establish a dialogue, where the space around the piece also becomes another defining element of the piece itself, pieces with a thousand different point of views.

With his subtle, yet strong gestures, tensions and counterweights, the artist talks about a fragile harmony that is achieved using opposites: flexibility and strength, fullness and void, light and shadow, movement and quietness, “Lo” invites the spectators to begin a personal dialogue with themselves looking for calm, serenity and the balance in nature.

“Lo” comments about the Hong Kong solo exhibition, “In my search for balance, the Universe is my main source of inspiration. The combination of forces of attraction and repulsion, tension and restraint, gravity and weightlessness, presents the most spectacular demonstration. The sublime moment of the alignment of the planets, a masterpiece within the exhibition, symbolizes the concordance of favourable events in our lives. The fragile moment of happiness.”

ABOUT THE ARTIST

Laurent Martin “Lo” was born in France in 1955 and trained as a visual artist and worked as a creative director in advertising and fashion. “Lo’s” first encounter with bamboo was completely circumstantial, but as he recalls, “it was love at first sight”. Bamboo became his obsession and passion that set him on a journey of discovery, which he refers to as his Bamboo Routes. Since 2004, he has travelled to India, Southeast Asia, and East Asia, as well as Latin America learning the mastery of bamboo as well as its spiritual potency. Laurent Martin “Lo” spends his time between his house-workshop in the Alt Empordà (Girona, Spain) and traveling to countries rich in bamboo. His workshop is an old factory which the artist himself has restored, and adapted to develop his art. Inside, against the walls, over the beams, one can see the different pieces of bamboo, together with those weirdly shaped tools, laid orderly near his “operating table”. Laurent Martin “Lo” is a member of the Royal British Society of Sculptors and currently lives and works in Spain.