Val (sculptor)

Working on clay with her own hands, Val felt a revelation, a kind of "love at first sight" for this activity which she perceived as an extension of her inner world.

[4] At the end of 2015, she received the Trophée des Français de l’étranger from the French foreign minister Laurent Fabius.

[5] Shortly before the opening of an exhibition of a new series of works at the RedSea Gallery in Singapore, VAL died in a motorbike accident in October 2016 in the Thai province of Chonburi.

One of her early works, Miss Trendy, produced in 2004, is a simple 40 centimeters high feminine character, with striking posture, gracefulness and proportions.

The welding of the bronze pieces was done at the Bangkok workshop – a crucial stage where the orientation of a character, the positioning of hands or the degree of inclination of a head would give to the work its final expression.

Urban Life is a series of twisted frames, on which are perched characters with long and thin arms and legs in various attitudes, seating as if plunged into deep thought, walking precariously, running or meeting each other.

Alongside a solo exhibition of her works, Urban Life was displayed in front of the building where the Art Fair was taking place : it was VAL's first public installation.

First at a technical level: her sculptures became monumental, which forced her and her team to answer a new series of challenges in terms of conception, moulding and assemblage.

"To keep the rightness of the feature during the transformation, to preserve the fragility of human destiny on sculptures weighing several hundreds of kilos are bets, which are both intellectual and technical", she wrote in a note in March 2013.

In parallel, VAL confronted new challenges, as with her 2 meters 25 centimeters-high sculpture Inle Balance III produced in 2012, which represents a character perched on an imaginary embarkation and directly inspired by the fishermen of the Inle lake in Burma – a perfectly balanced artwork with which the artist considered that she had "overtaken the law of Newton".

[9] For the artist, the answer laid in the "understanding of what constitutes the strength and the specificity of the artwork, in order to stress the strong points.

[6] "Passersby at exhibitions and art fairs often approached VAL who, while answering their questions, was listening to their comments with the humility of a great artist hiding humbly behind her creations.

One was especially struck by her sincerity, her goodness and her deep humanity: attentive to everyone, very affective, she always tried to establish a dialogue, to create a meaningful exchange with her interlocutors.

She would first venture into a new path by launching a project which was both original and eco-friendly: installing bronze sculptures on the sea bed near the island of Ko Tao in southern Thailand.

Installing three large bronze characters leaning on concrete walls would allow bits of broken corals, ripped away accidentally by divers or by natural incidents, to grow again, as they need to be fixed on some spot off the ground to be able to develop.

Moreover, the undersea currents forced the team to use a system of rails to stabilize the bronze characters once they were installed with the help of a crane on the sea bed at a depth of 12 meters.

After some research, she opted for the glass of Murano, produced since the end of the 13th century by the venerable master-blowers on this Italian island located in the lagoon of Venice.

She submitted her drawings to them and intervened during the process when bronze elements were inserted into the glass being molded or when potassium powder was being injected.

For the artist, it was a new approach: contrary to bronze sculptures, which are produced in a foundry on the basis of wax molds, the glass doesn't allow any mistake.

The combination of bronze and glass opened the way to play with shades and light, with voids and reflections, bringing a new dimension to the artist's work.

In February 2017, during an emotional ceremony at the Benchasiri Park in Bangkok, VAL's artwork Ville fantastique II was officially unveiled in presence of her family, her friends and her admirers.

[15] At the inauguration, Dr Jingjai Hanchanlash, president of Alliance Française of Bangkok, declared that "VAL was born as a French, but died as a Thai", although she did not have dual citizenship.

[16] During her whole career, VAL was carried by an inner force which guided her in her artistic work and which was linked, not only with nature, but also with the time-honored lineage of the sculptors that preceded her.