Thierry André
Saint-Jean-Port-Joli, Québec
Thierry André, Echoes of Time, 2022. Poplar wood and chrome baritone harp-guitar and internal arched-top soundboard, 116 x 41 x 14.5 cm, Photo: Pierre Barrellon.
Studio: How would you describe your approach to your medium? What made you choose it?
Thierry André: Music brought me to the guitar and consequently to the wood medium. There I discovered a whole universe, where there is a communicative synergy in itself at the woodworking level. It is a bit the wood itself that decides the direction my works take. When I sketch or make the blueprint of an instrument, I have the material right next to me. I tap it, I listen, and I give everything I have to highlight its own essence. If my approach is certainly guided by the sensitive relationship between sound and wood specific to luthiers, it is also strongly pushed towards the formal, expressive and plastic qualities of sculpture.
All this happens without thinking too much in a very spontaneous way. It may seem metaphysical as a concept, but wood very quickly indicates its preferences on how it wants to be approached.
The most demanding part of the process for me is to transpose everything on a technical level. There, the instrument as such requires ergonomics, adaptation, refined acoustics, all that.
Thierry André, Echoes of Time (detail), 2022. Poplar wood and chrome baritone harp-guitar and internal arched-top soundboard, 116 x 41 x 14.5 cm, Photo: Pierre Barrellon.
S: How would you describe yourself, personally and professionally?
TA: I am a fiery and also a somewhat reserved person. Instrument making therefore helps me to build my expression gradually in a series of simple gestures. Admittedly, the technical aspect required by my work is a creative framework that suits me well. There is certainly a need for control in there...and in this sense, I am in total admiration of the freer expressions of fine crafts, and captivated by the work of my peers. Eventually, I would like to make larger instruments in terms of scale. Often I glimpse a small part of one of my instruments that becomes magnified...that becomes part of a landscape or that becomes public art. The definitive border between utilitarian object and artwork is often internal, and knowing this makes me feel guilty sometimes, because I know that I can cross this line.
It is fundamentally a desire to go towards the other that makes me realize my work, and the precise framework that is that of guitar-making is for me a long-term training, an expressive vein to follow. To share my work with a wider audience is for me the key objective of the coming years.
Thierry André, 78 Tempo (detail), 2024. Hollow-body electric guitar with internal acoustic horn components, 104 x 41 x 10 cm. Photo: RedM Photographe.
S: What inspires you?
TA: I often refer to the notion of a pulse, in the sense that what makes the human heart beat faster, is what I pursue. I have a lot of trouble conceptualizing my work, because it comes from a direct drive between hand and heart.
Everything that unites us, this social and cultural fabric, the aspirations of each and every one, moves me. From there I first found that music, speaking here as much of the sound of the desert buzuk, to that of the Chinese pipa, to the African blues that migrated to America, as much as to the pop hits of the 80s that forged my childhood; All this splendor is immensely strong, universal energy, and perhaps it inspires me that all this was born from human imagination or a simple thought.
To bring a thought to light, to propel it outward, and to find resonance in the other, is as much the language of music as that of what makes us achieve everything, be it art, architecture, whatever. Simply being part of this flow of energy motivates me.
Thierry André, Guitare-Fruit Wurcer, 2018. Acoustic bowl-back calabash guitar, cow bone, copper, brushed aluminum, brass, phosphor bronze and steel, 101 x 40 x 25 cm. Photo: Jean Fitzgerald.
S: What do you see as your contribution to the field of your craft?
TA: Perhaps I have been able to distinguish myself so far by an interest as much for the origins of the stringed instrument, the tradition, as for a form of avant-garde and interpretation of instrument-making that we do not yet know. I am an inveterate fan of painting and visual arts. My first studio was also in an industrial building populated by artists; all this has rubbed off on me. The courage with which these artists presented their ideas and ideals, pushed me to clear a path similar to theirs.
Without thinking too much about it, I managed to create a form of timeless hybrid combining past/present qualities of the stringed instrument, and explored a lot the 3D and the effect of the round sound box. There is a unique harmonic tone brought by the vaulted shape (think of the interior of a cathedral for example), and this reverberation or sound that lingers between two notes (or two words), is that part of the subject that interests me. The relationship between note and silence can be compared to the relationship between sculpture and space.
It is this sound quest that led me to develop new forms for the instrument.
Thierry André, Guitare-Fruit Wurcer, 2018. Acoustic bowl-back calabash guitar, cow bone, copper, brushed aluminum, brass, phosphor bronze and steel, 101 x 40 x 25 cm. Photo: Jean Fitzgerald.
S: What wisdom do you want to impart to younger makers?
TA: To believe in themselves and to express their own ideas. To be prepared to work hard. I say this by repeating it to myself every day, not as someone who knows anything. I think it is a process linked to a form of gratitude towards work. This simple fact of being able to share with the world who we are, this with all the little imperfect bits that define us, is supersonic, and capable of moving.
Thierry André
instagram: @thierryandre.studio
website: thierryandre.com
This article was published in the Fall/Winter 2025-2026 issue of Studio Magazine.
