Acinonyx Jubatus - Château Toulouse-Lautrec

Since Antiquity, Man has tried to define everything he sees, touches, thinks, hears, smells and feels; this is how he communicates and transmits Knowledge, enclosing the Living in boxes, categories or definitions.

It was in response to this observation that the series “Definition (s): …” was born in which Emeric Chantier takes us to discover, among other things, sculptures of animals. Vegetal and mineral in appearance, each of them interacts with a white volume corresponding to their standard dimensions.

“Acynonix Jubatus” (the scientific name for cheetah in French) was selected by Emeric Chantier to interview a group of big cats: panthers. To awaken our consciousness, the artist reminds us that the cheetah is a living being that is not confined to the notion of speed reaching 93 km / h. It is first of all a living animal and evolving in Nature like so many others.

Technically, the sculptures of Emeric Chantier are created from the recovery of plant elements, mineral elements and synthetic materials. All these diverted components are, among other things, carefully assembled with each other using a simple tweezers …

By turning around the artist’s sculptures, each audience visualizes, like a giant, different miniaturized worlds. By contemplating them as a whole, each of us is prompted to look at the works in a microscopic way. Losing our bearings, we find ourselves examining, in a caring and meticulous manner, the environment in which we live.

In a multiplicity of eyes, Emeric Chantier invites us to become aware, to imagine and to react in our privacy. Without being the militant illustration of a politico-ecological act, the artist’s universe asks us: how does Man position himself in relation to Nature?

“Acynonix Jubatus” thus lays the foundations for a discussion between Nature and all the elements diverted from the hand of Man.