SHALINI PASSI IN CONVERSATION WITH ROLAND MELLAN

Grenoble-born Roland Mellan focuses most of his practice on ideas of movement, while experimenting with material and color. His universe is one where tables walk, chests of drawers are stripped of their clothing, and cupboards wink. Wood, metal and lacquer blend tenderness, hardness and exuberance. He pushes his objects to new levels. Mellan studied applied art at Olivier de Serres in Paris. After working as an art director in advertising, he decided to devote himself fully to creation, and runs a studio in Marseille

SP: You grew up in the 1980s, a tumultuous decade marked by the African famine, end of the Cold War signified by the fall of the Berlin Wall and art movements such as Neo Geo, The Pictures Generation and Neo-Expressionism which manifested in Germany, the USA and Italy. How did you react to these socio-cultural events?

RM: In the 80’s I was starting my career as an art director at Publicis. When the Berlin wall failed, in France, “figuration libre” was appearing in Paris, close to the movement “bad painting” in the US, with Keith Haring, Basquiat, Combas and Di-rosa in France. I was seduced by this explosion of energy, colors, its irreverence. I found it interesting that this movement was reactive to the changes in culture.

Nautilalu

SP: From working as an art director in advertising, you decided to devote yourself fully to your studio in Marseille. How and why did this occur?

RM: The goal of advertising is to sell a product, and creation is only a means to this end.
To me, creation is the goal itself, the reason for being at work. After working for a few years as art director for a publicis group in Paris, I wanted to live in another world, more real, far from the world of advertising.

Bronze Planum, 2017

There was a job offer from an agency in an island of the caraibe, the french island of Martinique.
I took the job, knowing that I was putting an end to my professional career in Paris, but I paid the bills and I could live close to nature, to the ocean, and be able to dive everyday…. I started working on some pieces, exploring different materials: wood, polish beach glass, concrete, cans, recycling

In life either we have remorse or we have regrets. I have long chosen remorse rather than regret and therefore rather than regret not having devoted my life to creation, I took the risk of stopping advertising. I moved back to the south of France.

Miroir

I gave myself one year to work on my first pieces, without knowing what I was going to produce but according to my desires, and after a year, I went to show my work in galleries in Paris. I made an exhibition at Gladys Mougins gallery in Paris, After that, I met David Guill who proposed to me a personal exhibition in 2003 in London. There have been publications in magazine, that made me known to gallery owners, art collector and interior designer as
Peter Marino, Kelly Wearstler which I have collaborated with since.

SP: Your forte lies in experimenting with colour and convention and stripping furniture of its conventional articulation. Kindly explain the creative process behind this?

RM: I started with a concept, a mental image. To approach volume, it is good to immediately think of it in volume, either directly or by the model. Now I often create a maquette of a piece. For art furniture, you have constraints, and as we say the more constraints we have, the more creative we are.

Bridge Table

There are different stages in my work. I start with the sculpture on wood. Then this form is totally covered by a shell, a carapace of aluminium or brass. I then paint it with many layers of colored lacquers that I erode. It is on each of these stages, from small experimentation to small experimentation, that for 25 years I have remained passionate about this subject.

SP: Furniture pieces are oft a reflection of intimacy and personal space as objects found in households, official organisations, public spaces, et al. Is the practice of designing sculptures from these inspired by a personal emotion or memory?

RM: There is the idea of the carapace, this carapace which makes it possible to protect oneself and to be able to live in a world where sensitivity is often considered as a weakness. There are the layers of lacquers or such a psychoanalyst archaeologist or one to one goes down in the chronology of these layers and what was buried at the bottom is found on the surface, like a memory of the past, a reminiscence.

Sculpture Black Unamed

SP: Pieces crafted from wood, metal, and lacquer form the mainstay of your design oeuvre. Are you planning to experiment with any other material?

RM: I created bronze pieces and I did some pieces in resin . Now I work on sculptures where the wood is not covered. I’m also experimenting with ceramics, which is very inspiring.

SP: How long have you been associated with the jpBArt Gallery and what synergy do you share with Jean-Pierre?

RM: It’s been more than 10 years I’ve been working with Jean-Pierre. He’s fantastic and he retains a very sensitive relationship with the works he exposes.

N° console Mangrove

SP: Tell us about your favourite artists/sculptors?

RM: Noguchi, Penone, Baselitz et Chillida are artists I like.

SP: Where do you draw your inspiration from?

RM: Like many artists I am very inspired by nature. it is nature that gives us everything,
we are only taking this back, re-giving it to see.
SP: What are you working on at the moment?

RM: At the moment I am working on a new chest of drawers ovoid, and on a series of coffee tables for a private collector which will be made in an aluminum foundry. Modular shapes that will marry or move away according to the desires and needs

Private Collector

SP: Describe a typical day in the life of Rolland Mellan?

RM: Take one of my vintage motorcycles and go to the workshop, and work with my assistant until the evening. Often be rewarded by the beautiful sunset on the mediteran sea on my way back

SP: If not a sculptor, what would you have been?

RM: I would have loved that my job was to draw curves and draw straight lines on a circuit with a competition motorcycle or then sculpt the shape of trees .

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