Unusual Materials

Daudy has a longstanding interest in Chinese scholar’s rocks since her studies of Chinese at Oxford University. She uses the analogy of Chinese rocks as "tools for thinking" in her minutely detailed works depicting trees. Scholar's rocks range in composition, color, density, and size. They can be turquoise, jasper, coral, wax stone, and more, the stones vary in shades of red, black, green, yellow, blue, and brown, and range in height from an inch to many metres tall. Collected in China from the Tang dynasty (618-907 C.E.) onwards, scholar’s rocks are natural formations prized for their aesthetic qualities, particularly their unique colors and shapes, as well as their ability to invoke and encapsulate the natural world. Usually found in riverbeds, mountains, and other remote locations, the stones would sometimes be enhanced by carving and shaping, or the addition of inscriptions. Named for those who sought and owned the rocks, scholar’s rocks were kept in a garden or a study to provide inspiration. For poets and artists, they evoked a landscape, represented the natural world, and at times the rocks were functionally used as brush rests, incense burners, inkstones, and seals. In his book on scholar’s rocks Worlds Within Worlds, Robert Mowry succinctly stated their use: “Like a landscape painting, the rock represented a microcosm of the universe on which the scholar could meditate within the confines of garden or studio.”

Here for Loro Piana Daudy made an ephemeral sculpture out of the world's most precious wool. The Gift of Kings wool was named after the Spanish royal family's practice of gifting pairs of merino sheep to other sovereigns to honor relationships and seal alliances.

Daudy was curious to recreate an ancient form out of a natural material of the highest quality. This outstanding wool has an impressively fine diameter on average. Pure, gleaming white in color, its crimped structure, natural stretch, and supreme softness make it pleasurable to work with and Daudy has exhibited these works in museums.

When commissioned by Louis Vuitton to make a trunk, Daudy made a sheep shaped trunk in reference to her celebrated Alternative Random Number Generator that caused such interest in the world of mathematics and physics, and filled it with 199 sheep made of bonsai wire and Loro Piana wool (Gift of Kings) in reference to the 200 "visionaries" of which she was named one, and following also a tongue in cheek idea of the dedicated follower of fashion. Daudy loves sheep. She uses flocks of sheep for participatory performances and to prove metaphysical points. She has made films of sheep even with the greatest cellist in the world, and refers to sheep in a lot of her work, as well as using wool felt. Wool felt to her represents the idea of redemption, as felt is composed of the leftovers of the fabric industry pressed into a new material, nothing wasted, beauty and utility out of rubbish.

The sheep from Louis Vuitton's Kate Daudy; Trunk 06 travelled to every continent during the course of a calendar year and are now at the Louis Vuitton Museum in Asnières, France.