signé is pleased to present :

Marie & Alexandre - Under Pressure

Under Pressure takes its title from hydroforming, an industrial process in which water pressure gives shape to metal. Here, however, pressure refers not only to a technique. It is also a condition of creation.

Every work is born under a form of pressure: that of the material, but also that which acts upon the artists themselves - time, doubt, irreversible choices, the determination to bring into being something that does not yet exist. Under Pressure describes a process while also allowing an autobiographical dimension to emerge, subtly, beneath the surface.

Firmly rooted in industrial design, Marie & Alexandre approach their discipline through some of its essential principles: typology, material and technique. Yet their work is never limited to resolving a function. It activates perceptual, symbolic and imaginative dimensions that extend use without replacing it. Their forms engage the senses, inviting us to slow down, move closer and look again. What first appeared self-evident gradually shifts: the subject is no longer simply the piece itself, but the relationship it establishes.

Throughout history, objects have never been merely tools. They have also been presences, intermediaries between the everyday and the imaginary, giving form to myths as much as to ways of being in the world. This depth runs through Marie & Alexandre’s work. Endowed with a life of their own, their creations do not simply occupy space: we share it with them.

The pieces brought together in Under Pressure now shift this enquiry into a new register. Forms become more restrained, the vocabulary more concentrated. The aim is not to simplify, but to condense. What becomes of this presence when the formal language seeks to say as much with less? How can the same sensory intensity be maintained through a new economy of means?

Pressure remains perceptible within the forms themselves. They appear stable without ever seeming entirely still. A tension continues to run through them, as though the energy that gave them shape were still at work.