This is the beautifully bohemian (and slightly mad) small world of French artist Ronan-Jim Sevellec. At 80 years of age, his most recent exposition was in 2012 and saw his boxes of tiny artist’s workshops and old antique rooms displayed in various eccentric and romantic locations around Paris.
Ronan spent much of his childhood hanging out in the ateliers of his father Jim, a painter and sculptor, and was clearly influenced by the beautiful chaos of an artisan’s life. When he moved from the provinces to become a Parisian in the 1960s, Sevellec began working as a set decorator in French cinema until he found his calling for creating these breathtaking miniatures in the late 1980s.
“Je cherche peut-être à revivre quelques parcelles de
ma vie, plutôt des miettes, à travers la mémoire des autres
en observant – et toujours avec le même étonnement –
l’étrange similitude qui existe entre nos souvenirs
de passés différents.”
My attempt at translating this beautiful quote:
“I might be look to relive certain parts from my life, or rather crumbs, through the memory of observing others – and always with the same astonishment, the strange similarities between our memories of different pasts.”
Ronan-Jim Sevellec
Every image courtesy of Joël Laiter that you see here is clickable for the full sized view, which I highly recommend doing to really poke around Sevellec’s small world and take in the astonishing detail that’s gone into his work. No word on how long it actually took him to build his miniatures, but with very little information available on Ronan, I get the feeling he keeps himself to himself, which no doubt leaves room to lose oneself in another fantasy world.
Of all the miniature art I’ve come across, this has to be the most exquisite. Enjoy… (and click to enlarge).
“Les bains de Mirande”
“Resserre aux accessoires” – (Accessories storage room)
“Atelier N03”
Images via Àvivre & RoughDreams.fr
