"
Das Weiss wirkt auf unsere Seele wie absolute Stille. Diese Stille
ist nicht tot, sie ist angefüllt mit lebendigen Möglichkeiten.
Sie ist ein Nichts voll von jugendlicher Freude oder besser gesagt
ein Nichts vor der Geburt, vor allem Anbeginn."
Wassili Kandinsky
Seit einigen Jahren entwickelt Florence Lehmann eine Arbeit rund
um das Thema Geburt. Es ist eine Auseinandersetzung über die
Analogie der plastischen Entstehung von Formen und der Entstehung
von Menschen (création et procréation).
“ With the genealogical series of rings, she is pursuing
her research on the meaning of the transmission and the mould
as a matrix. The
imprint is thought of as a complete technique and system for procreation.
When the transmission of characters is truly close, successful,
like a cloning. These notions of a journey, chain, matrix and their
analogies to the body have rarely achieved such a subtle reminiscence
in jewellery."
Michèle Heuzé-Joanno
The flesh of words,
A common thread in contemporary French jewellery
by Michèle Heuzé-Joanno, exhibition commissioner
Fl. Lehmann ‘bejewels’ her life, dresses her jewellery.
Once, as a young girl, head in the clouds, she transformed part
of the sky into a brooch, a cut between two roofs. She shared this
dream energy, this softness of the blue sky against the blues of
the soul, that of metal as a mirror reflecting life. Then, she
fell in love, and her work, with humour, puns, constantly narrated
this link. From her happiness was born a little girl, Rosa-Lou.
The thought process was once again moved; with maturity, the analysis
is more subtle, blending maternity with the questioning of the
creative process. Her artistic quests are those of all women, all
mothers. Her jewellery touches because each one can find in them
his or her own story. They are complicit jewellery, without a sophisticated
image. Her assets do not change, she knows the communicative strength
of colour, words and symbols.
Her colour is white, her penchant red. White is neutral and red
acts as a contrast, with words giving the spirit. In this way,
a large bracelet takes on consistency with its title: The empty
is full (Le vide est un plein). The interior, the empty, is red,
cut out in the form of a heart. Profiles of faces serve to describe
human relationships, uncertainties. Tu me fais tourner la tête,
a ring to turn people’s heads. The waltz, another to be balanced
where two profiles face one other in a sceptical dilemma. On a
bracelet, the profiles are linked by a red thread: the secret is
in the look. The title sometime serves as a riddle or as a link
between two elements: Today is a ring where the finger is placed
between the inscription “tomorrow” and an old Egyptian
medallion, for “yesterday”. The wearer becomes active,
you oscillate Between, wisdom and passion, two earrings. The body
is active, gestures participating in unveiling the sometimes hidden
message. In this way, a ring where “yes” is written
on one side and on the other “no”, reflecting the difficulty
of speech or the desire of the day…Pushing the involvement
of the body and the designer’s taste for words, one earring
can only be read when reflected in a mirror.
From the first to
all appearances
Why do we wear jewellery? To go out into the world as for the
first time, to make us suitable to appear. From the link between
this
first appearance and the wearing of jewellery to appear, Florence
Lehmann studies the mysteries of this.
Think of a ring, a bracelet, a necklace. To put it on, to make
it exist, you put it on: and so it is born. Think of yourself,
your arrival in this world, this first arrival, this first outing:
and so you are born. The journey stops when the child's head appears,
stopped at the nose. Fl. Lehmann freezes time to take advantage
of the moment and better understand the jewellery and its significance.
The necklace, externally, round like an egg, carries within the
silhouette of the wearer. Through necklaces of large pearls that
can barely be put on, she translates the sensation of this. Certain
pearls remind us of stylised bones, others round and particularly
voluminous, like a belly, bear on a flat side the Mysteries of
life: cellular divisions from the first three days in fresh and
joyous colours. On others, the face is covered by the face of a
child, masked by gold leaf, which fades with time. The mystery
remains, you can never know everything about somebody, it is through
contacts that the veil is lifted.
The internal drawing of the face is taken up again on a gold
thread or silver chain, with the faces passing by one another,
from one
birth to another, between ancestors and children, the jewellery
is a chain, a human chain, a genealogical chain. In this way, Fl.
Lehmann goes back to our roots. On the bracelet, Noah, the
descendants of the latter are enumerated. Its formal complexity
takes up the symbolism again: the calligraphic link, in white latex,
holds two shells, the mould for objects to come. Since 1998, Fl.
Lehmann has been reflecting on the analogy between the plastic
birth of shapes and that of men, between creation and procreation.
Her colour, white, is participative here. “White, on our
soul, acts like absolute silence… This silence is not dead,
it overflows with possibilities for life…it is a nothing
full of juvenile joy or, to put it better, a nothing before any
birth, before any beginning”.
With the genealogical series of rings, she is pursuing her research
on the meaning of the transmission and the mould as a matrix.
The imprint is thought of as a complete technique and system for
procreation.
When the transmission of characters is truly close, successful,
like a cloning, Fl. Lehmann reflects it in noble metal and not
white resin. These notions of a journey, chain, matrix and their
analogies to the body have rarely achieved such a subtle reminiscence
in jewellery.
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