Worthy of the finest cabinets of curiosities, this reliquary is composed of sculptural assemblages made from fragments collected in forests and along the seashore. Through roots, bark and gathered remnants, Jephan de Villiers creates a silent world suspended between memory, nature and metamorphosis.

Winged Figures Meditating on the Metamorphosis of the Sky evokes a crowd gathered on the shore, watching a solar eclipse unfold. Like silent witnesses turned toward the sky, these fragile figures seem suspended in a moment of collective contemplation between earth, sea and mystery

Halfway between reliquary and vestige, Jephan de Villiers’ work brings forth a silent people: totems, watchers, shadow processions and figures of memory seem to emerge from a forgotten time. Roots, earth, bark and driftwood become fragments of a meditation on origins, reminding us that before words there was the forest, and that at the end of the journey, everything returns to the earth.

An ecological visionary ahead of his time, Jephan de Villiers leads us beyond everyday life toward “an imaginary civilisation that seems to belong to a past when humankind and nature were one.” Each of his sculptures bears poignant witness to the lost harmony between humans and the natural world.

All originate from the gathering of fragments of nature during long daily walks: roots, twigs, wood, bark, horseshoe crab shells, feathers, seed husks, earth and mud… transformed into small “reappeared” beings. Jephan de Villiers likes to say: “I invented nothing, I simply remembered.”

These small creatures with startled eyes, sometimes draped in feathers, becoming angels, inhabit boxes, panels, or processions accompanied by carts. Together they form the People of Arbonia.

Within Jephan de Villiers’ universe we also encounter the " Fragments of Memory " walnut-like forms wrapped in paper covered with the artist’s invented, or rediscovered, writing, bound together and concealing a secret object.

And then there are the Reliquaries, containing various objects, such as these travel adornments imagined for a child king.