Thomas Boulmier

In both his collages and installations, the work of Thomas Boulmier seems to be motivated by the same intention: to reform the symbolic charge of the elements that he manipulates. His collages, made from the intermingling of pages from different publications, gradually build up a catalogue without a clear focus. His manner of arranging furniture and trinkets of all kinds presents them as objects to contemplate, whose meaning is not immediately clear. By arranging them and finding them new places in his compositions, Boulmier invites his viewers to consider these objects in a new way.

He intervenes at the level at which we formulate meanings for objects. His special form of consideration for daily items allows him to remove them from the contexts in which they usually appear. In their usual settings they are subordinated to meanings and functions that leave no room for doubt. Once taken away from these habitual environments they lose their original, assumed meaning. Boulmier offers them a new, much less standardised, one.

Boulmier's work is thus marked by a form of doubt as to what characterises reality and our relationship to it. His manipulations of the “real” world are disconcerting for the viewers, challenging our interpretations of our surroundings.