SAVOIR-FAIRE DES TAKUMI - Cultural and artistic exchange between 2 countries: France & Japan, 2 cities: Paris & Kyoto - Japanese Partners: Yoko & Tomoaki Katsuyama.
Revisiting the Obi (the traditional Kimono belt), ITOYO is an artistic dialogue between two cultures and antipodal know-hows: ceramic/porcelain & textile-making/Tsuzuré-Ori. This collaborative work defies both industries’ conventions by designing a work of art built around one shared and untapped characteristic: transparency. ITOYO is a feat of prowess - both technically and creatively. The encounter drove both artists to challenge the properties of clay and fabric. In concert, they managed to strike a balance between a host of contradictory forces: the heavy and the light, the hard and the soft, modernity and tradition.
Here by presented, the French version. A “Coral” version will be exhibit in Kyoto and Tokyo, adapted at the Japanese interior and cultural codes.
Les Ateliers de Paris, Ville de Kyoto, Ateliers d'Art de France.
earthy, rotund, outlandish.
Cradled In the cusp of your hand lies a shining silver crater. Rock-solid with stunning glazed entrails. Fallen from the skies or dug out of a splintered rock, the calabash makes us feel gravity weighing in our grasp.
Handmade. Sandstone. Silver enamels.
Spiky, marine, primitive.
Archaic specimens these spiny creatures plunge us into an underwater world. Their spiny pattern radiates outwards from the globular hard shell. This unique slow- moving organism and culinary delicacy becomes fossilised in a white cast. Too dangerous to touch, too risky to eat?
Handmade. Porcelain.
Brittle, elegant, pure.
This white and majestic set of three plates is a poetic hymn to the simple beauty of undulating waves and their foamy deposits. The perforated ridges bring relief and life to the milky vessel, highlighting the clay’s transparent properties. One could almost hear the bubbling foam, the crackle of a receding wave....
Handmade. Porcelain. Gold, copper, or platinum details.
Large: 43 cm/ Medium: 33 cm/ Small:20cm
noble, rugged, organic.
Mixing the terrestrial and the marine world, this blooming creature tempts us by its predatory beauty. Its flowering, elongated stalks or tentacles speak of rugged purity and concealed danger.
Handmade. Porcelain. Gold thread.
Height: 30cm
domestic, homey, loyal.
An ode to the spoon. One of the oldest domestic utensil to eat from. Spoons is an eclectic, non-classic hommage to a classic element of our lives. It is an hommage to our everyday, to the ritual of nourishment, to the remarkable qualities of the basic and ordinary.
Handmade. Porcelain. Gold, copper and platinum details.
Astéria, big.
Nyx, black.
Thémis, small.
Cosmic, earthy, power women.
Inspired by the natural powers of the Greek Titanides, the earth-goddess daughters of Heaven and Earth. These three mother of gods belong to the realm of oracles and the elements: Asteria the starry firmament, Nyx the shadowy figure of Night, and Thémis the personification of order and law.
Friction, metallic, alien beauty.
A celestial body that seems to have just crashed onto Earth from an extraterrestrial kingdom. A mysterious presence, acting as a remnant of a shooting star coming from outer space, the metallic debris offers us a glimpse into the cosmic forces at play around us.
Handmade. Sandstone. Silver enamels.
graphic, ethnic.
This series is a probe and a study of patterns in basket-making by playing with vivid colours, imprints, reliefs, and textures. It mingles North-African and Asian styles found in textile and arts.
Handmade. Sandstone. Porcelain. Leather/wax/abaca threads.
white symphony, terrestrial, perennial.
blooming everlastingly above your head ORCHID is an aerial installation of different sizes of white flowers and petals laced with gold according to your taste.
Porcelain. Height: 15cm to 50cm. Mat gold (optional)
undulating fusion, precious, spiky.
these sculptures carve the light in most intricate patterns. Twisted bodies perpetuate movement with delicate folds and fringes.
Ivory porcelain. Hand-made.
5 sizes- from 10cm to 30cm.
Oval, tactile, talismanic.
UNDER YOUR SPELL is a collection of sculptural art fusing a medley of ceramic techniques. Between talisman and egg shape these hollowed shells are home to mystery and experiment. Adorned with patterns, moulded in pure porcelain or clay mixtures with concealed colourful insides. Hear a light jingle - balls of ceramic trapped inside roll invisible to the naked eye. Engraved with the word ‘AUM’ they symbolise ‘the vital vibration’ and invite you into the Yogist cycle of life.
Porcelain. Sandstone. Handmade.
visual poem, hostile, earthy.
Symbol of dualities warring against each other: of softness and cruelty, virtue and vice, poetry and rote language.
Ivory porcelain & sandstone. 20cm to 30cm.
earthy, textured, volcanic.
The Raku sandstone’ beauty is born in fire. The molten clay comes to life in the furnace.