FROM THE COMPANIONS OF DUTY TO NEW YORK GALLERIES
France paris
United States – New York
Pierre-Yves Guenec, the new talent to watch, is a lover of craftsmanship with a creative spirit that blends design practice and art direction.
With a unique and rich background, Pierre-Yves Guenec was born in 1990 in Nantes, where he grew up immersed in a world that blended the arts, literature, and spirituality. After attending the Atelier de Sèvres and the École nationale des beaux-arts, he realized that theoretical training alone was insufficient. Drawn to the world of materials, he turned to the decorative arts. This shift proved fruitful: in 2015, he was inducted as a Compagnon du Devoir (a member of a French guild of craftsmen), and the following year, he became the national secretary of the Compagnons Serruriers, Métalliers et Fondeurs (a French guild of craftsmen specializing in locksmithing, metalwork, and foundry work) for three years.
Then it was off to the Ateliers Saint-Jacques, a venerable institution well-known to those familiar with the world of heritage restoration and contemporary architecture, but also to the art scene thanks to the Coubertin Foundry, for its bronze and repoussé metal workshops. There, he worked for the biggest names in design and architecture, collaborating with international galleries and developing the institution in the United States.
With a foothold on both sides of the Atlantic, Pierre-Yves Guenec launched his own creative studio in Paris and New York in 2022. His proposition? To approach our worlds through a spiritual lens and "transfigure materials to reveal their beauty."
Through his practice of design, but also scenography, artistic creation and interior architecture, this creative spirit is keen to think about "uses and archetypes; the immanence of objects, the impact of spaces and the power of symbols", in order to invent "the language of a future conducive to the flourishing of being".
Still deeply attached to his first love, craftsmanship, he entrusts his creations to the finest French and European artisans, whose expertise stimulates his imagination. Thus, all the collections from the design studio are co-signed with the artisans who worked on their creation.
Among the little gems in his repertoire is rocky, which he describes as follows: "This is the first table that was made by the studio. It came about after months and months of research, years of work. When it was produced, I lost a very close friend, Rocky Lafleur, who had helped me enormously, and this first piece is therefore dedicated to him. Sculpted from a single block of marble, precious, whole, all curves and yet very geometric, it reminded me of Rocky."
Do not miss out on Tower of Babel, "A modular lamp concept based on this Old Testament myth which, in addition to being dear to the Companions of which I am a part, is also an ode to the diversity of cultures," explains the creator, who emphasizes: "There is a very clear link in the Old Testament between the word and light. It therefore seemed interesting to me to transpose this concept into a lamp where each module would evoke a language, and therefore a culture. And the more languages there are, the more light there is." A talent to watch.