Christophe Monteil
Artist
An artistic project linking, through water,
60 major sites of world history and humanity.
60 waters · 60 places · 60 artworks
Discover the project
The Last Dance · Pacific Ocean, Hawai'i · 70×140 cm
Water is life. It also contains time. A history. A memory.
These paintings are not representations of history — they are made of it.
The project
THE APPROACH — ATLAS OF WATER is a monumental artistic and documentary project: 60 rust-on-steel paintings, each made with water physically collected from a site of deep historical or symbolic importance to the world and to humanity.
From the cradle of the first Homo erectus in East Africa, to the earliest civilisations, from the sacred waters of the great religions to the oceans crossed by explorers, from the great cities shaped by empires, to the water carried by astronauts into space — each work contains within it a fragment of the place it evokes.
Water reacts with steel. It causes it to rust. It leaves its mark. These paintings are not representations of history. They are made of it.
#03 — "Polarrr" · 100×100 cm
Iceberg water from Ilulissat Bay, Greenland — Water of the primordial glaciers
The reason
WHY NOW — To remember the history of our world.
A desire to remember that we belong to the life of planet Earth, that we are but a few generations, a few links, in the extraordinary epic of humanity. Water is the bond between all these generations — plant, animal, human. Everything that has shaped the remarkable history of the blue planet, unique in the vastness of the known universe.
#12 — Black River · Benin, West Africa
The water that witnessed the departure of the ancestors
The process
Each work in ATLAS OF WATER is "painted" directly onto a plate of raw steel. The primary medium is the water itself — collected on site — sometimes mixed with natural pigments. Applied to untreated steel, this mixture triggers oxidation: rust forms, and a figurative work takes shape.
Mastery of the dosages produces different shades of rust, which are then fixed permanently, marrying the ancestral material language of iron and water with a contemporary figurative sensibility.
Water oxidises steel. It does not degrade it.
It reveals it.
Formats range from 60×60 cm to 150×150 cm. Each piece is unique, signed, accompanied by a certificate of authenticity and a collection film documenting the origin of the water.
What makes the work unique
01
This is not a representation of water. It is the water itself — collected, transported, placed on steel — that creates the painting through natural oxidation.
02
Each water reacts differently. Its mineral content, composition, and geological history give each painting a colour, a texture, and a signature all its own.
03
Christophe Monteil collects each water himself, on site, in contact with local populations and places. Every journey is documented by a film that accompanies the work.
04
The 60 works together form an atlas — not geographical, but human. A cartography of the places that symbolise the history of our world.
The complete work
I
Rust on steel painting
Made with water physically collected from the place represented. The resulting image is not a representation of the place — it is chemically derived from it.
The water of the place made the work.
II
it tells the story of the journey, the place
A short film that tells:
What disappeared into the final painting — the journey, the effort, the emotion of the place — lives on in the film.
III
Original water, sealed
A vial containing part of the water collected on site — untransformed, unused in the painting. The raw water. The water as it was there. It accompanies the work forever.
Together, the three elements form something none could be alone: a work that is simultaneously image, narrative, and relic.
In one sentence
The painting shows. The film tells. The vial holds.
Frequently asked questions