Sur-nature

The sur-nature is a body of speculative botanical forms, derived from custom algorithms and returned to physical material. The works begin with a custom AI model, a Generative Adversarial Network -or GAN, trained by the artist since 2019 on 4 million herbarium sheets, drawn from natural-history collections and from around 1,500 specimens he dried and catalogued himself in the Savoie mountains. The model generates plant forms that follow the logic of nature but never exist in it: asymmetries, stems that loop back on themselves, abrupt cuts, irregular leaves. Selected forms are lifted into 3D, matched to fallen branches gathered in the forest, then cast in bronze using the lost-wood technique, painted in oil, or projected into tapestry and other mediums.