The Three Trees - Guy-Rachel Grataloup

Guy-Rachel Grataloup (b. 1935), Les Trois Arbres [The Three Trees], ceramics, 1988
This ceramic mosaic is distinguished by its size, which is in line with the dimensions of the ventilation chimney for which it is intended. It is 28.50 metres high and covers an area of 850 m².
Patterns, structures and colours are combined, offering different perceptions of the artwork and even different meanings.
Other artworks from the La Défense collection are also supported by ventilation shafts:
- Mosaïque and Vive le vent by Michel Deverne ;
- Cheminée végétalisée by Édouard François ;
- Le Moretti by Raymond Moretti;
- Cheminées by Philolaos Tloupas.
A word about the artist
Born in 1935 in Nantua, Grataloup achieved the feat of conveying an original artistic vision through monumental artworks. Using objective visual data, he likes to create optical readings that are directly transposed into invented worlds of materials and colours, sometimes close to monochromaticism. The artist gives us to see the fiction of a world oscillating between the real and the unreal.
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