Presented for the first time at Carpenters Workshop Gallery Paris, Legenda unveils three new works from Molenschot's ongoing CityLight series: CL Sable, CL Mer and CL Paradis. Inspired by the dune landscapes and beaches of the Dutch coastline, where Molenschot lives and walks often, each sculpture exists in a single, unique finish that translates a distinct facet of that landscape into colour and form. For Molenschot, shape, volume and balance have always come first; colour follows only once a work is resolved, drawn from the landscape itself as a kind of legend, or key, through which its palette is defined.
CL Sable takes the colour of beach sand directly from the material. The bronze is polished until its warm, golden tone emerges, unaltered by patina. CL Mer is finished in a silver patina made with silver nitrates, echoing the endless range of greys of the North Sea. A surface that, like the water itself, constantly shifts in response to light, reflecting what surrounds it. CL Paradis is treated with a deep black patina, evoking not a literal paradise but an idea: the infinite space above us, where landscape meets something beyond itself, the vastness of night and sky. Together, the three works are fully realised environments, each proposing its own atmosphere, geography and emotional terrain.
While the series originated from Molenschot's experience of Shanghai, where countless layers of streetlights stretched endlessly across the city, Legenda reimagines it through the landscapes closest to home. Rather than observing these luminous networks from afar, he imagined physically grasping them, bending and compressing them into sculptural form. Each work is hand-shaped in bronze into intricate structures that channel and direct light, transforming fleeting systems of illumination into monumental objects.
Continuing his exploration of the relationship between hand-forged metal structures and spatial configurations, these large-scale sculptures assert themselves within their surroundings. Their layered compositions overwhelm and envelop the viewer, functioning as abstract topographies where light, material and landscape converge. Through precision, imagination and an instinct for world-building, Molenschot invites us not only to encounter sculpture, but to step into landscapes of his own creation.
