Richard Marnier's artistic approach was born from a focus on continuous sounds (bumblebees). Later observations on structures constituting the sound -harmonics, tones, pitch- led him to question those who build the language: the alphabet, phonemes, words.

Richard Marnier used a computer to materialise the sound of each letter and some diphthongs. By recording the sounds, he was able to obtain graphical curves that can give a "silhouette" to the sound. Then he reproduced the forms obtained by carving them in ivory coloured PVC blocks to get a three-dimensional volume materialising each letter.

Richard Marnier builds relationships between sound and volume thanks to his original study of the alphabet that is the skeleton of language and the meaning, which we generally only have a mechanical relationship with. The artist's work deconstructs our reflexive relationship with these signs and voluntarily turns it into a game. Indeed, his alphabet -rather than traditional cubes- evokes tops and is stored in alphabetical order in a wooden box.

Alphabetic ossuary, all of these pieces embodies the construction of what is ordinary, intangible, invisible, and offers our manipulation, tempted by these intriguing objects, smooth, of a creamy whiteness. In parallel with the production of this set, Richard Marnier wanted to edit a black and white silkscreen representing the translation of each of the letters in graphical form in order to develop a new form of writing, an alphabet with a plastic approach of the language.”

Delphine Descaves