Thierry Bontridder

Statement

Since 1982, Thierry Bontridder has been noticed for the originality of the jewelry he designs with unusual materials: acrylic glass, nylon, corian and in particular titanium. Fascinated by this metal with iridescent colors, the artist multiplies his creative research in the realization of his jewels and his sculptures. Individual and group exhibitions in Belgium and abroad follow one another at a steady pace. His artistic work gradually shifted from jewelry, in essence sculptural, to sculpture itself, leading to monumental works of public art.
 
His jewels are in the same line as his sculptures, with simple curves and shapes, games of translucency and opacity, subtle dialogues between light, space and colors. Their highly constructed character and monumentality are much more a matter of sculpture than of goldsmith work. Its ornaments in acrylic glass or titanium capture and transform the light from which it becomes an element in its own right.

Thierry Bontridder belongs to these designers, whose technical expertise is the interpreter of the material. Its requirement of formal acuity calls for appropriate, if not sophisticated, procedures. But the technique is only an instrument in the realization of a formal «idea». Technical rigor becomes poetry of pure forms where materials are exalted

CV