Most of my sculptures are small-sized, between 7.5 and 23.5 inches high (20 to 60 cm). Why is that ?
I got accustomed to that size as early as my first marbles, owing to their weight : I used to select blocks of around that size, yet almost at breaking point when it came to lifting them out of the riverbed by sheer strength of arms and carrying them all over the way to the road.
I kept those proportions when I worked at my earthenware shapes, hence my bronzes, and more lately, my crystal sculptures. Therefore, those sculptures at sensible prices, fit in home decoration. Let me add that I am rather clumsy at smaller pieces, whereas I feel in my depth when I must tackle big ones.
Besides, the model of African sculpture, such as Michel Leiris described it, left its mark on me : “objects usually small-sized”, that “remain proportioned to the hand that carved them”, so that “the artist may handle as he likes” the objects during their carving, knowing the fact that those statues are, most of the time, designed “to be handled as rituals require, rather than to be looked at”.
In other words, it is, in more ways than one, a sculpture of the hand : by the hand and for the hand.
(Translated by Michèle Bustros)