Pli intérieur is the first paper sculpture to be folded and cast in bronze using the wax/paper-pearls method. I made and cast it myself. It dates from 2004 and marks a turning point in my production. Like “Schell”, “le mouton à 3 pattes” and the “paper bird”, it is the result of direct paper folding, which does not yet involve computer-assisted modelling. The way in which paper resists and yet bends to the exercise of shaping has fascinated me in many ways. First and foremost, what I find fascinating is the way in which paper retains the traces of each manipulation through marked folds or simple wrinkles, provided the paper is thin enough. I often make the analogy with tree bark, which cracks, folds and covers itself with stigmata as it grows. A kind of memory of time becomes legible on the tree’s skin, like paper.