Claire Cosnefroy's objects seem carved from stone, reminiscent of church slabs or the limestone walls of Provence eroded by rain and wind, which have fascinated her, she confided, since she settled in Arles, southern France.
In 2020, this versatile artist, who navigates between fashion and music, ended her career as a print journalist-stylist and left Paris to devote herself to ceramics. "Fashion is an applied art, subject to many constraints. I could no longer bear the perpetual stress, orders, the hierarchy. I needed to reconnect with a more instinctive process. Working with clay grounds you in reality, in time."
After training in Burgundy, she turned to creating everyday objects using the coiling technique, in stoneware or porcelain, with timeless shapes, "as if from elsewhere," without angles or edges. Sculptural wall lights, undulating chandeliers with up to 10 branches – "they are what made me known" – but also vases or end table stools.
Her unique pieces, made to order, attract the attention of interior architects and young galleries (Objets inanimés, in Marseille, or La Lune, in Dijon). To give them their mineral aspect, the ceramicist coats them with a white slip and then polishes them with beeswax. "I'm seeking that polished effect, that sheen that catches the light, creates shadow play, and makes them appear as if they've always been there even though they've just been made."
These days, she is expanding her practice to include furniture pieces. At the request of the La Lune gallery and in collaboration with Atelier Pesmois, she has imagined In Attesa ("in waiting"), a walnut sideboard adorned with ceramic doors, followed by a cabinet, a sort of tall buffet, In Attesa II, presented by La Lune, along with other pieces by the creator, at the Vague gallery, in Arles, until May 2.
"I worked the clay slabs together, juxtaposing them to create continuity in the form." Hollow, they are "constructed like a cave" and modeled on the surface with fingers, then with an engraving stylus and brush, like a bas-relief. Or, in her words, "a block of stone in suspension."
The website of the La Lune gallery and the Instagram account of the Vague gallery.
Translation of an original article published in French on lemonde.fr; the publisher may only be liable for the French version.