Toulouse: Inspired by wood, cabinetmaker artist, Boris Ndjantou sits down to the table
Plastic cabinetmaker Boris Ndjantou selects bio-sourced tree stumps in the heart of Occitania to fashion high-end tables. Raising public awareness of the environment and giving priority to creation over standardization.
We find Boris Ndjantou in his shared car workshop, Boulevard de Genève, by the canal. Guided by a delicate flavor of cut wood, the visitor finds this young 33-year-old plastic cabinetmaker among the planks, logs and delicately rolled up shavings. Next to him, that day his 9-year-old nephew, Lebrom, came for the holidays to give a hand to this uncle so admired. The boy is very proud to have taken part in this standing cedar wood table, patiently crafted from a local material. “I select this wood in the heart of the forests of Occitania,” he explains, not exceeding 150 km. I prefer strains with roughness which obtain this wood less attractive and ignored by manufacturers. Like this cedar wood attacked by fungi and doomed to certain death. It can also be a tree felled by a storm and nibbled by the skeleton capricorn ”. Wood that Boris takes charge of from start to finish: he cuts it into planks, dries it, transforms it and ensures delivery.
An artist who favors high-end, original tables, symbols for him of sharing living together “the table brings together and brings together. We have also seen it with the covid where so many precautions had to be taken and everyone’s place to be reviewed ”.
Listening to this native of Cameroon, we can guess that the philosopher guides his life: “I am a great reader of Carlos Castaneda, a specialist in shamanism”, he admits. But make no mistake: Boris also has his feet on the ground, not ignoring that creation is also linked to effort and work. Thus from November 8 to 11 it will be at the Salon des Créateurs in Toulouse before flying to the Salon MIF from November 11 to 14 in Paris.
An artist with an atypical career, who grew up in Albi in 2005 before moving to Toulouse in 2019. With his petroleum engineering diploma in hand, he will initiate several professional retraining, “simply to multiply experiences and savor the discovery”. Between the plastic arts, photography, town planning, entrepreneurship and cabinet-making, he enjoys himself, “I am simply a jack of all trades”, assures this mountain enthusiast whose great happiness is to sleep in a bivouac. However, wood remains Boris’ great love story: “I was born into a family of designers in the heart of the Congo Basin, one of the most important areas of tropical forest. Even if today exports have greatly reduced this wealth ”.
As a child, Boris was already practicing making wooden toys “for the simple pleasure of doing something of my own choosing and inventing a universe for myself through the object. Wood poses time ”.
Wood remains Boris’ great love story
Reproduce with imagination, what the gaze photographs… A projection in the space necessary for this artist. But it is above all the environmental aspect that titillates the conscience of this thirty-something: “I work with wood after having nourished myself with other experiences of recycling soda capsules, aluminum pallets, tin. Whenever I can give a second life, I do it ”, notes this autodidact of this material formed with the Compagnons du Devoir and on construction sites,“ the best school ”. Passed by Paris in 2018, he is involved by the City around a socio-cultural educational farm project with chickens and sheep in the 18th arrondissement. “Inaugurated by Anne Hidalgo, this farm has been very successful”. In 2020, Boris created his company, Biome Design. Next year, he is setting up his sculpture exhibition this time. Then will be granted a little idleness “I must be bored to create. And then I will soon be a dad ”.