Bust, Clytius, Incandescence Nicolas Clairval - 24 cm - Plastic - 2025

Incandescence is a contemporary reinterpretation of Clytius, one of the Giants of Greek mythology associated with the Gigantomachy, the primordial clash between the Giants and the Olympian divinities.
In the narrative attributed to Pseudo-Apollodorus, Clytius is overthrown by Hecate and her torches, making fire and light elements particularly tied to his story.  Perseus
Nicolas Clairval transposes here this figure drawn from ancient imagination into a language decidedly contemporary.
The bust is made in PLA by 3D printing, then prepared and entirely hand-finished through various pictorial interventions.
Unlike a classic reproduction aiming to imitate marble or bronze, the artist deliberately chooses to break with the traditional codes of sculpture.
Layers of burnt orange, red, pink, deep blue and touches of yellow superimpose on the body and face. Some colors seem to emerge from the material while others disappear into the hollows of the relief.
The light continually transforms the surface.
From the angle from which the work is viewed, the bust can thus appear incandescent red, bluish, metallic, or almost iridescent.
Artistic approach
Nicolas Clairval’s work questions how we today look at forms inherited from Antiquity.
3D printing allows reconstructing a classical form using contemporary, precise and reproducible technology.
But this reproducibility is then deliberately countered by manual intervention.
Color becomes accident.
Superimpositions become traces.
Irregularities become matter.
The objective is therefore not to artificially reproduce an ancient sculpture, but to bring a form from the past into a new aesthetic space.
In Incandescence, the polychromy also evokes the violence and energy of the Gigantomachy. The oranges and reds recall fire while the blues introduce a colder, almost cosmic tension.
Clytius no longer appears as a simple mythological character: he becomes a figure caught between antiquity and digital culture, permanence and transformation, classical order and chromatic explosion.
Additive manufacturing methodically builds the form layer by layer; the pictorial gesture then disrupts this regularity.
It is precisely in this opposition that the work’s approach lies.
An ancient form reconstructed by a contemporary machine, then made again singular by the hand.
Characteristics
Artist: Nicolas Clairval
Title: Clytius, Incandescence
Type: sculpture / contemporary relief bust
Material: PLA
Technique: 3D printing, manual preparation and pictorial intervention
Height: 24 cm
Width: 13 cm
Depth: 5 cm
Weight: about 260 g
Finish: matte and satin polychromy, tones of red, orange, pink, yellow and blue
Numbering: 1/1, if the back marking corresponds to your artist numbering
Signature: Nicolas Clairval / monogram on the back, according to your marking