Bitten leaves
Daniel Steegmann Mangrané
2025
Carob leaf
Leaf: 7 to 9 x 9 to 11 cm / Frame: 32 x 28 x 5 cm
Framed
Edition of 11 copies (all unique) signed and numbered by the artist, plus 2 artist’s proofs
Only a few copies left
This edition consists of two small carob leaves partially overlapping and pierced with a hole. They are placed between two panes of glass and framed, reminiscent of the tradition of herbariums and botanical representations.
For the past twenty years, Daniel Steegmann Mangrané has regularly used leaves in his work, both as a theme and as a medium. Here, his attention was caught by carob leaves. They have the peculiarity of growing in pairs along a stem, with the last two leaflets often touching delicately, forming a kind of heart shape. By piercing a hole in their center, the artist paradoxically emphasizes union through absence, fusion through emptiness.
But Bitten leaves also plays mischievously with another form of binary opposition, that which distinguishes chance from necessity. While the shape of the hole seems so perfect and methodically made, there is nothing to tell us that it did not come from the random bite of an insect. By mixing the organic and the geometric, Steeegmann Mangrané thus continues to challenge our conceptions and distinctions between the realms of nature and art.
