Humanity has always observed nature with curiosity and awe. Despite centuries of scientific exploration, the natural world remains an enduring mystery—an ever-evolving subject of fascination and reflection.
In the work of artist and designer Damien Gernay, nature’s visible and sensorial qualities—texture, light, reflection, elemental form—are both studied and aestheticised. Guided by an instinctive drive to materialise abstract ideas, Gernay transforms personal impressions of the natural world into evocative objects, surfaces, and installations.
His practice moves fluidly between art, design, and scenography, employing a wide range of materials such as steel, glass, clay, wood and leather. With the precision of a craftsman and the sensitivity of a visual poet, Gernay creates pieces that unsettle perception. His surfaces shift and distort under light, inviting viewers to question what they see and what they sense. In doing so, his work opens a poetic space where nature is not defined, but continually reimagined. Through abstraction, his works suggest elements—stone, water, fire—yet remain strangely transcendental, suspended between the real and the hyperreal.
Born in 1975 in the suburbs of Paris, he studied design at the Ecole Supérieure des Arts (ESA) in Saint-Luc Tournai, Belgium. He lives and works in Belgium.
