Coup de Foudre - 500 000 Volts

Artya: Coup de foudre

At the crossroads where the sanctified traditions of fine craftsmanship encounter the bold novelty of contemporary art and where the creative talent of the artist forges with the watchmaker's dexterity to craft a unique masterpiece, a matchless work of art is magically born: "Coup de foudre", a collection featuring watchcases litterally struck by lightning. Artya: a Time for Art

Artya's supreme mission is to fundamentally change the watchmaking syntax through the grammar of contemporary art. The workshop's initial assignment heralded a new era, pioneering the appreciation of beauty, thereby relegating the context of time to the back seat. Emotion, creativity and intuition fuel the whole concept.

This avant-garde venture sets a new direction away from the current trend in watchmaking which perceives contemporary art as a device for advertising campaigns or an easy solution to enhance the aesthetics of some dials. Initiated by art, this approach is based upon the know-how and expertise of craftsmen and watchmakers, collected over centuries. The Artya workshop has introduced unprecedented processes in watchmaking, implementing techniques harvested from the field of art.

Deeply immersed in the contemporary art scene, Yvan Arpa, with his unequalled experience of watchmaking, conceptualized the idea to blend art into a timepiece, to transform this everyday ustensil into a piece of art, through creating a composition to be worn on the wrist, half-way between a painting and a sculpture.

To fulfil this endeavour, he called upon a painter that he knows well and has been close to for two decades, Dominique Arpa-Cirkpa, his spouse. He entrusted her with the dials of the Coup de foudre collection. Alarmed at first by the constraints of size and materials, she quickly imposed her own creative vision and artistic touch by exploring different media and means such as various colours, paste, bristles, brushes, and knives, to create incomparable works of art. These dials embody aspects of miniaturized paintings. As a boundless expression of the intricate precision that commands watchmaking, they turn into true works of art reigning supreme on the wrist of the aesthete, the enthusiast or the collector.

Obeying the artist's whim and imagination, the watchcase from the "Coup de foudre" collection are struck by lightning and undergoes thermal combustion, moulding, engraving and various drastic processes that are handcrafted in the Artya workshops.