The very big candles Between a funny looking little dog, flowers, design books, bubble wrap and some vintage finds, there is a bag of frosty and undefined material that has been obsessing the designer - wax. Helene has been tackling and experimenting with the polymorphic and ubiquitous material. Instead of paraffin wax which is smoky, smelly and synthetic, Hélène choses to work with creamy plant-based organic wax.
In her atelier, she has created a unique and almost ritual process to orchestrate the forms of her totemic candles. Each geometric element is molded separately before coming together into one sculpture. At the center, a thick candle wick acts as a backbone for the structure whilst four other hidden wicks extend the skeleton of the Very Big candle. These four secondary wicks will only come to light when the candle has already burned for a few hours, renewing the fascination with other forms and shadows.
Hélène plays with this natural movement of the wax by opposing to it her radical geometry. Like the hand of another artist adding his own brushstrokes, the wax drips and melts creating other shapes and textures, morphing until the Very Big candle disappears. The wax challenges the evolution of the work but it also enables its disintegration—a disintegration that the regardeur can stage himself by either lighting his very big candle every night, once in a while, or keeping it as a sculpture. In doing so he continues the work of the designer by defying and defining the shadows, engineering the light to drama or harmony.
