First monograph of the French artist Gyan Panchal, this book presents his work questionning contemporary materials and abstraction through sculptures made with elements from crude oil (polystyrène, polyethylene, plexiglass, etc.) sometimes combining them with natural elements (seaweed, shellfish, etc.). The gestures which he marks on these materials come from ancestral practices. He so investigates the links between the natural and the cultural, by trying to realize an inventory of essential gestures which determine the man and his future.