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Jonathan Bréchignac

The work of French artist Jonathan Bréchignac seeks to highlight the meeting points between nature, science, and visual arts. As an interdisciplinary artist, his practice spans installation, sculpture, and painting. The observation of surprising natural phenomena Bréchignac takes as a starting point. For example, rare minerals, moving stones, iridescent beetles, bio-luminescent algae, dew droplets, and the conversion of water into ice. Even though each of those natural phenomena can be scientifically explained in detail, their functioning keeps a deeply enigmatic character. Therefore, inspired by scientific mechanisms, Jonathan Bréchignac explores this difference through the development of processes.

So in a way, Bréchignac mirrors how science always departs from nature. And to cast light on the captivating elements of the environment he uses technology as a primary tool. Similar to research, for example, on bioluminescence inspired by fireflies. Thereof the resulting work acts as an ecosystem, where each part communicates with the rest.

His practice offers a singular look at the capacity of art to grasp the indefinable and the way in which nature fascinates the human mind.

Furthermore, when Jonathan Bréchignac recreates ‘life’ with synthetic materials and new technologies, he spawns a poetic network of fascination. In fact, he questions not only the border between artificial and natural but also the relations we have with life and time. In his work, the evocation of popular myths, and scientific and esoteric theories, blurs the boundaries between fiction and reality. He points out the limits of our capacity to comprehend the world, thus revealing the processes from which emerges our beliefs.

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