Since his childhood, Christophe Bourdinaud has observed with fascination minerals, which he calls “samples of nature”. At the age of 16, he met Toros Rast-Klan, a French sculptor of Armenian origin. Toros was a boilermaker before being an artist and offered young Christophe his first drawing lessons; then, the Swiss artist, Alexandre Meylan, taught him modeling at the Beaux-Arts in Geneva.

He also met at the Beaux-Arts in Geneva Dominique Bovy who introduced him to the profession of stonemason; the Compagnons will take him on a Big journey across the world until his return to Switzerland and his first solo exhibition in Lutry: Les Pachas Capiteux in 2019.

To be an artist means…
To Feel. To experiment. To provoke. To vibrate by the spectacle of the senses. I am a very good spectator of comedy and drama. Gluttony of sensations.
To be an artist is to love the whole process of creation and to be the first to see a work of art reveals itself.
In an artist’s approach, there is a desire to work with chaos, diversity, and chance.
To be an artist is to give, to communicate, to make you feel.
To be an artist is to be a sponge then transcend your emotions and express your unconscious, your little Proust madeleines.
The artist’s gesture translates an emotion in all the honesty of the soul.

What relationship do you have with the stone?
The stones have millions of years of history, which fed little Christopher’s imagination as much as the dinosaurs.
Stone is never easily given and has required a long apprenticeship, coercion leads to complicity.
I always feel that the stone has contributed something to the work, it is the guide.

Why marble?
My apprenticeship with the Compagnons took place in Burgundy in a region where limestones are the hardest in France.
The resistance of marble allows for unique finesse and precision.

A word about Michelangelo …
A genius capable of seeing the sculpture in the block.

The best compliment you received?
A plenitude illuminates your art. The economy of means, simplicity, for maximum effect.

2020 was …
First of all, I would like to thank the organizers of art-engiadina.com for the 26th edition of the International Sculpture Symposium of Sur-En (in Switzerland), as well as the various international sculpture competitions (Snow, Ice, Marble) in France and Finland in which I participated. Its organizers have maintained these events despite the restrictions.
We also had to reinvent ourselves and overcome precariousness. And following cancellations, we had to deal with the most urgent.
In 2020, there was great loneliness that led me to be my own model, for self-portraits!

2021 will be …
Made of culture and artists.

Your official canteen
I cook according to my mood

Dark or Milk Chocolate?
The human being is duality, that’s it

Your favorite object
My next sculpture

Your Robinson book
Le bruit des nuages, de Peter Greenaway

An Artist on your playlist
Pharoah Sanders or Black Pumas

An IG account you are addicted to
The official IG account of the international Snow Sculpture in Nayoro in Japan. 

Never without…
Playfullness 

Photographies © Alban Pernet