Marie-Laure Viébel creates round, sensual sculptures. Illuminated by gold leaf, iridescent by Murano glass or satin-finished by voluptuous bronze, they all come from the same original form: the coco de mer, an exclusive treasure of the Seychelles found mainly on the island of Praslin. Viébel was dazzled by this dull brown seed and had the idea of transforming it by giving it light. Her apprenticeship in a gilding workshop introduced her to the secrets of the ‘tempera’ technique. It's a process that she has reappropriated to transcend the seed in this precious material. From East to West, gold applied to an object gives it an exceptional value (Egyptian sarcophagi, icons...). Removed from its natural context, the seed begins a spiritual journey.

This relic of the plant world is known for its suggestive shapes that evoke the human anatomy. Its central slit is reminiscent of the one that adorns the underbellies of archaic fertility divinities in Greece, Asia and especially Black Africa, where their power is closely associated with the fertility of the soil. The bronze used by Viébel for certain pieces suggests a return to Mother Earth, the generator and sustainer of all living things. Other civilisations have seen this opulently shaped seed as a symbol of prodigality. The Iranians used it to make alms bowls, or ‘Kashkul’, an attribute of the dervishes. In India, they are sometimes used as containers to carry the sacred water of the Ganges.

Probing these multiple trajectories, Viébel is part of the polymorphous history of this seed and draws inspiration from it. His sculptures are receptacles for his memories of travels, his taste for ancient civilisations and sacred art. The exhibition accompanies this trajectory by placing them in dialogue with objects from other cultures. Mounted on pedestals, they recall the ritual masks that enable traditional societies to contact their ancestors and seek their protection. The ‘seeds of life’, which fascinate us with their powerful presence, also perform this beneficial function of transmission.

In a slow, meticulous process akin to that of a craftsman, Viébel brings out the beauty inherent in the seed. The design she creates adapts to its shape, the result of a sensitive dialogue with its physical qualities. Like a trophy, each sculpture marks the achievement of this fruitful encounter. The Chinese yin‐ yang that sometimes decorates their surface directly evokes the mystery of creation linked to the interaction of two elements. Cultivating the fertile soil of art history, Viébel also winks at those who, she says, ‘opened her eyes’; artists who turned to faraway cultures to rediscover, in their timelessness, the essence of aesthetic emotion: Pierre Soulages with the statue-menhirs of Rouergue, Zao Wou-Ki with Chinese painting several thousand years old.

Taking the plant as her starting point, Viébel sets aside her subjectivity and lets herself be carried away by the associations of ideas that the seed ‘dictates’ to her. The importance she attaches to her object as a source of inspiration also brings her closer to Surrealism (*). This movement was interested in the evocative power of natural elements which, by arousing a vivid emotion, exalt the imagination and desire. Viébel's sculptures are a powerful expression of this vital shock, which touches our spirits.

* André Breton speaks of a ‘poetic awareness of objects’ that reveals itself ‘only through their spiritual contact, repeated a thousand times’. L’objet surréaliste, Emmanuel Guigon, p. 11, Ed. Jean Michel Place.