Cely Bigando

The triptych was made in memory of a dear friend who passed away. A kind, sensitive mind and a brilliant architect. As I was visiting him at the hospital, discussing the weather, he and his wife asked if I could make a drawing. Enquiring about the theme : “le ciel”, he answered. Which in French stands for both the sky and heaven. The room went silent. His wife and I shared a complicit look. He never got to see the drawing. A cathartic impulse led me to create a joyful and uplifting tribute, yet intimate, reflecting on who he was and the comradeship we shared. I took the theme literally, with a voluntarily comforting naive style evoking the children storybooks. The narrative depicts the so-called “one way to heaven” and a peculiar architectural eden, overlooking the Earth under the moon and the sun protection.

Cely Bigando is a French-British architect and artist. French born, she graduated in Fine Arts and Architecture, two thriving passions constitutive of her body of work. She grew a strong inclination for immersing herself in other cultures. From a scholarship in South America to a diploma in Asia, she settled in cosmopolitan London to pursue a career as an architect in international firms for nearly twenty years. She is based in Paris since 2024.

She seeks iconoclastic architecture which she captures through a mix of in-situ photography and hand drawing. She explores the local life and culture surrounding these architectures, which she draws with the same attention to the detail. A way to elevate the subject from the most celebrated masterpiece to the most banal object. The momentum is kept alive weeks, months sometimes years after the event occurred. She reflects back on that moment of time, and transforms a then rough sketch into a detailed drawing. Her style is a reminiscence of etching, an art of the old time. Black lines, hatches, dots altered by the grained paper. The craft is meticulous, repetitive and endless. An anachronistic approach in an era where advanced technologies could do the job in no time. A counterpoint to the frenetic pace of the world we live in.