Christophe Leroux’s froissées or sculptures are industrial sheets of aluminum painstakingly designed with layers of oil paint, sometimes acid, and stencils of letters, arrows and numbers. The interaction of letters in a single word- the severe angles and implicit roundness- is every bit important to Leroux as the meaning of the word itself. One instance of Leroux’s word play is “Push” painted in the middle of a froissées that has been twisted, contorted and well, pushed to no avail. Two red arrows point in opposite directions signaling the manner in which the metal has been bent. The froissées also reveal Leroux’s sense of humor. “Fragile” runs down a large sheet of aluminum that the artist has literally wrestled with, yet the sleek shine of the metal reveals a material as delicate as an unwrinkled piece of paper. Leroux’s deliberate manner of sculpting and painting means that no surface is left unnoticed. Even the backs of the froissées are coated in layers of industrial grade spray paint. Leroux’s skillful handling of basic colors and materials gives the spray paint an unexpected elegance.
The froissées are an urban tableau, a visage of the modern world as they are reflectors of the signage that we frequently encounter. Leroux’s use of accessible industrial objects connects his work the fabric of urbanity, but his calculated treatment and manipulation of those materials results in an artwork that is entirely new and unexpected. To experience Leroux’s work is what the narrator in Proust’s Swann’s Way must have felt like watching a delicate piece of Japanese paper expand in water- both witness the blooming of complexity and simplicity.