Engaging with the material of clay, the abundance it harbours, in order to awaken a primordial aesthetic impulse
The character of this first exhibition has been inspired by my contact with ceramics. The quality of the material itself calls forth certain tonalities that defined my explorations.
Clay is reminiscent of the first crafts discovered, nativity figurines. They not only embodied fertility, but were also most likely used in ceremonies as vessels of natural powers.
The human being, moulded from earth, instills life into the forms he shapes. The clay he manipulates is the same component forming his body.
Thought to be the most inert material, clay insinuates the demiurgic dimension, the faculty to recreate a microcosm inhabited by aspirations.
This invitation to design animated figures begins with a tactile relationship. A gesture is etched out in the raw matter, which responds through the lively effects of texture in such a way that a concrete exploration comes into being.
Clay takes shape in the harmonies of enamelled colours, reveals its rich materiality in scratches, signs, traces… In these expressive movements, silhouettes are sometimes sketched out: the appearance of entities, human or cosmic, compose dynamic architectures.
The forms that result from this interaction evoke a primitive language, only to be liberated in a spontaneous emanation.
This process requires being in touch with my own sensorial impulses. There is a dimension of delving into an earthly material, whose passivity welcomes our intentions. Yet this vulnerability, sometimes fragility, becomes fecund, as it constantly suggests new paths.
The “Invocations” at play here convey the propensity of the elementary matter to suggest forms and entities, and in doing so, call forth the impulsions to corporeal expressivity, awakening my own pleasure to venture into graphic opportunities.
The same urge nourishes work on bas-reliefs, collages, drawings, bronze. The austere and delicate simplicity of the support welcomes tangible harmonies, a balance of strength generating an abstract or figurative narrative. The composition opens out to give a flow of breath, the result of its vitality.