Jean-françois Fouilhoux - The size and the sculpture (second part)

Jean-François Fouilhoux, ceramic sculptor, creator of ideas.

- Size and sculpture first part: https://youtu.be/ATqSCO6VhZg

The works of Jean-François Fouilhoux are the culmination of some of the most unique research of contemporary French ceramics.

Long a potter with a particular knowledge of enamels, he was able to concentrate for seven years on the narrow path of celadon to understand and master what is probably the most majestic enamel of the ancient masters Song.

At the same time, Jean-François has developed a new shaping technique that allows him to create forms of astonishing diversity and richness.

These pieces dressed in these luxurious enamels are currently among the most original creations and most popular in contemporary ceramics.

The pieces of Jean-François Fouilhoux are in the permanent collections of the Museum of Sèvres and the Museum of Decorative Arts of Paris.

He was attracted as a teenager by Chinese ceramics SONG, recognizable by its glaze celadon.

Today, he is immersed in this culture for his own creations. His aerial sculptures are built in the snapshot. With the help of a blade he cuts in a clay wall to create, like a signature, a new form he comes to decorate with celadon.

His pieces are real calligraphy in space.

His works are present in collections and museums around the world.

"As soon as I moved to Mont-près-Chambord (France) in 1976, I studied celadon, searching books for information that was not included.

Ten years later, in 1986, a weighing error led me to the path of this satin and translucent, mesmerizing and mythical material, to which I still devote all my mind and all my time. Although having found today the technical principles that govern the formation of this famous "fat reflection", I tirelessly multiply the tests, always looking for a new perfection in the quality of a satin or in the nuance of a tone.

Celadon provides a feeling of sweetness, an impression of infinite depth. In contrast, this serenity allows me to exalt a tension, a certain dramaturgy in sculptures with complex lines, lively and sometimes tormented.

The outside of the pieces is carved in a very soft clay block. Forms barely organized, but dynamic, abundant and nervous, drawn in a swift gesture, then take birth, retaining on their surface the traces of this brutal and passionate genesis.

After a beginning of drying, the earth hardened and I dig inside. The action lasts a long time, the earth has become firm, the lines are stretched and then frozen, and the surfaces are smooth. Bumps, projections more or less tapered will then occupy the void, the rhythm and organize. They are the idea and the reflection that I associate with the more sensual forms of the outside. On the most recent sculptures, the modeling of a fleshy lip is opposed to the tension of a tapered line like a blade where matter exhausts itself before disappearing.

The opposition between the indefinite and the definite seduces me enormously, and underlies my work. I like this progression that goes from the effect of matter where everyone can register his imagination, to a very defined form that expresses a symbolic aesthetic universe. "

Jean-François Fouilhoux