Untitled

The wood is russet brown, dark in the hollows and paler along the worn ridges. The mass climbs in a twist from a base that opens into an arch on two supports, like outstretched limbs, and turns back on itself at the tip. Toward the right, tapered protrusions suggest a snout without ever settling into a figure. The knots and the cavities opened by erosion have been left as they were; in the upper third, two of them each hold a pale stone wedged in the hollow. The piece wavers between stump and beast. The artist picked the root up on Île Sainte-Hélène, in Montréal, one stone already caught in the wood, a cohabitation he calls unlikely.

Wooden sculpture, its twisted root rising in an S with two pale stones wedged in the hollows, set on a white surface against a plain background.

Close-up of the upper part of the sculpture, two angular beige stones wedged into the hollows of the gnarled wood, white background.

Three-quarter view of the wooden sculpture, two long roots stretched across a white plinth whose corner is visible, pale stones set into clefts in the wood.

Frontal view of the upright wood, its crown forking in two, a flat stone against a dark cavity and a beige triangular stone wedged lower down, white background.

The reddish-brown root set outdoors on a freshly sawn stump against a cedar hedge, its pale stone lodged in the middle hollow, the upper tip running past the top of the frame

Possible readings

Ritual verticality pared to its material essentials: the root's accidental twist becomes signature, the chance cavity becomes housing for stone. The gesture consists in recognising, then removing what conceals.