Benoît Pouplard

Here is an artist who, after accumulating a mass of ceramic knowledge has now confined himself to a creative peninsula where all is either porcelain or celadon glaze. He thus faces a demanding material and a capricious glaze where the slightest mistake can sow endless difficulties.

His sculptures are essentially states of matter, proudly witnessing all the suffering of their transition to adulthood. That is, for those that survive their birth pains because, to complicate his task, the artist has invited the random into his creative dance by using his firings to determine the sought-after degree of material collapse, a state that he monitors like a starred chef!

The results are a succession of wonders evoking glacial landscapes and pack-ice in permanent movement. Releasing forces way beyond the usual ceramic experience, the artist seeks to reveal that world of wild and pristine beauty normally reserved for those who have known the arctic wastes.