The artist duo Lemaire and Touron works on the concepts of time, humanity, and nature. Their work exists in the past and future at the same time, and is concurrently of flora, fauna, and technology.
The 3D printed porcelain element, created by Touron, functions as the base of the sculptures. Over the years, Touron has created a digital archive of elements and symbols of the history of ceramic making. He uses those digital elements to first construct sculptures on the screen, then “print” them with a sophisticated 3D porcelain printing technology. Often resembling medieval fortresses or futuristic spaceships, they function as a stage for the story to be told. In a second step, Lemaire, an internationally renowned glassblower, reacts to them, creating delicate and whimsical glass elements that complete both the narrative and the sculpture. Sometimes they look like otherworldly plants or fungi, sometimes perplexing figures or animals. They represent the actors in this theater.
As a result, their works include thousands of years of human innovation as they regard the effects of these achievements, techniques, and technology all in one. In this sense, their work methods and subject matter parallel one another: Lemaire and Touron reveal, in the physical sense and the philosophical, what nature can look like in sync with humans and their technology.
Lemaire’s and Touron’s works are part of international private and public collections. The Ringling Museum (FL) has recently acquired one of their sculptures for their permanent collection. Furthermore, the duo has recently displayed their newest creations at Harvard Ceramics, in an exhibition entitled Nature 2.0.
Nicolas Touron is a storyteller, and like a gifted one of the oral tradition, he enhances and embellishes his tales each time they’re told. As an artist he creates engaging and complex work in both Ceramic and Painting that, through concepts of movement, evolution, characters, and motifs, suggest larger narratives. Departing from traditional approaches, Touron’s stories never have specific beginnings or ending, and in this way become visual embodiments of the living process of storytelling. Touron's work has been featured prominently in the USA as well as internationally in art galleries, museums and public spaces. His work is in numerous private collections around the world
Amy Lemaire is a multi-disciplinary artist and educator based in Brooklyn, NY. An explorer at heart, her work reveals an interest in currency systems, material language poetics and the production of histories. As an artist, Lemaire works with glass, photography and digital fabrication to create an array of tools, artifacts and objects that consider the role of technology as an accelerant in a multiplicity of narratives that weave together virtual and physical worlds. Amy Lemaire’s work has been included in exhibitions nationally, and is in many private and museum collections.