About my work..

 

Timeless and ancestral, the art of raku is a kind of alchemy in which the natural forces and the technique of the creator form a precarious balance to lead to the birth of unique pieces.

 

A violent encounter between earth, fire and smoke, raku is a true ritual, fascinating and unpredictable at the same time.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

This word raku comes from an ideogram engraved on a golden seal which was offered in 1598 by Taiko, teacher of the tea ceremony, to the Korean Chōjiro. The result of a technique of enamelling of Korean origin which developed in Japan of the XVIth century, it is mainly related to the manufacture of bowls for the ceremony of the tea.

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For the monks of Zen Buddhist monasteries, the tea ceremony, the Chanoyu, was a ritual inciting calm and meditation, a kind of mystical experience. In this cult of tea, the bowl becomes a precious object of veneration, acting almost as an intermediary, a medium in the search for spirituality.

 

The oxidation-reduction reaction during which the more or less metallized colors appear, the cracks and the smoky effect of the ground left untreated which form the main characteristics of this type of ceramic. The incandescent parts can also be soaked in water, burned or left in the open air. They undergo a major thermal shock and, in any case, express the history of land, fire and water under these constraints. The multitude of parameters involved makes it possible to obtain results varying at infinity, which confers on the part, entirely made manually, the quality of a single object. After cooling, each ceramic is cleaned to remove all residues of soot and ashes and this is where the surprise is total.

 

As i always think, "the raku authorizes numerous experiments ... poetic, philosophical, playful and ... catastrophic! "

 

Raku ceramics are rich in tactile sensations because they preserve the roughness of the clay. If the technique seems simple and rudimentary, chance holds a large place in the raku. The intentional meets the accidental.