Jean-Nicolas Gérard - Slipware 2015

JEAN-NICOLAS

GÉRARD

goldmark

Price ÂŁ10

Jean-Nicolas GĂŠrard

Jean-Nicolas GĂŠrard

Max Waterhouse

goldmark 2015

Jean-Nicolas Gérard My sister once told me how on an afternoon pottery course she set out to channel the work of Jean-Nicolas Gérard. Forming a squat, dumpy beaker with her clay, she gently clasped it in her hand and squeezed middle finger and thumb, forming two personal ‘nooks’ to help the hand settle around the pot. The course instructor, peering over to inspect her work, smiled: ‘Here, let me fix that for you’, she said, gently taking the cup and rethrowing and thinning it until it sat perfectly symmetrical and slender. Could a better story be contrived to illustrate the disjunct between Gérard’s approach to clay and that of most contemporary studio pottery? Somehow, I doubt it.

Gérard is a potter who will always divide opinion. I am told that his work elicits more comments from window shoppers than any other potter at the Goldmark Gallery - a fact I can well believe, having spent some time on summer weekends manning the nascent pot-shop next door and watching the double-takes of passers-by who, glancing once absentmindedly at the displays, were abruptly stopped in their tracks and compelled to move closer, squinting in at the jugs and tureens. Reactions to his pots vary wildly, from the effusive to the confused and disbelieving.

One family, noses drawn up against the window, seemed divided on the spot: the mother, her curiosity piqued and a bright smile spreading over her face, turned to her husband; but he, hurrying the group on, replied simply that ‘a kid could do that.’

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149. Large Thrown Dish Yellow with sgraffito 14.0 x 44.0 cm

I am always bemused by the accusation, all too easily levelled at an artist like Gérard. For one thing, it is to misunderstand how delicate an eye and deft a hand is required to maintain the inner form, the compositional basis on which Gérard’s looseness rests.

If you were to watch him throwing his large salad bowls and dishes, you would see how easily he draws up his clay, how watchfully he approaches the imperceptibly fine line between form and formlessness and, with gentle confidence, how he leaves the clay alone just as that line is crossed and a balance between freeness and structure is arrived at. This is ‘the moment’, as articulated by the Polish poet Julia Hartwig, when ‘shape surmounts the shapelessness’: it is a difficult thing to describe, far better witnessed in person, and is the source of that unquantifiable ‘la justesse’ - the quality of rightness - that Gérard’s pottery possesses. In a world in which ceramic artists so often overwork their clay, exacting a mean and contradictory thinness from a stuff that is fundamentally tactile, Gérard’s throwing - ostensibly casual - is a masterclass in restraint; and yet unlike such contemporary ceramics, his pots lack any sense of restriction, reminding us instead of the imperfect and primitive beauty of the earth from which they were formed. There is a reason he is known as the potter’s potter.

Ignorance of Gérard’s unsung skill aside, it has always struck me as odd that the charge that an artist’s work is ‘childlike’ should be

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11. Large Vase Yellow with blue finger spots & sgraffito. Iron slip 59.0 x 36.0 cm

taken as an insult. Matisse, a great influence on Gérard, wrote of his 1950s retrospective show that: ‘the artist has to look at everything as though he saw it for the first time: he has to look at life like he did when he was a child’.

To look at the world and to create as children do is to be unencumbered with the concerns of technique and with the need to control each element of the creative process - concerns Gérard has made a concerted effort to shed. Rather, the childlike perspective is characterised by openness, an embrace of accident and of spontaneity, all of which direct the artist more closely to the ‘essence’ of which he has often spoken. Much of Gérard’s pottery evokes the naïveté of Matisse in its markings: plates bearing sgraffito spirals and miniature loops scratched onto the sides of vases recall the artist’s flower motifs, the expressive line of his lithographic portraits. More generally, there is a likeness in their philosophy of making: in the preeminence of ‘la joie’ - pure ‘joy’; in the importance of colour as a medium for expression; in the central foundation of nature’s influence. Gérard’s pottery, with its scarifications, its radiant yellows and browns and brilliant fingertips of blue and green, is almost itself a portrait of the sunbaked furrows and viticultural hills of rural Provence, expressive and joyously innocent. And, like children who eagerly throw their whole person into creation, Gérard’s presence is gloriously

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145. Large Lidded Soup Tureen Black & yellow 27.0 x 31.0 cm

3. Very Large Square Dish Yellow with sgraffito 10.0 x 68.0 x 68.0 cm

embedded within his pots through crumpled rims and the indents of squashed fingers and thumbs. It seems strangely serendipitous that the many round metal tubs, inherited from his grandmother and in which Gérard’s larger pots are now daily bathed and daubed in slip, served once as the baths of his own youth.

Gérard’s studio has been located in Valensole for more than thirty years now. His materials and the creative parameters these have set for him situate him in a longstanding tradition of southernFrench terre vernisée, a tradition in which he has firmly established his own principles and contemporary aesthetic. As with all of Gérard’s work, everything in this show is functional in form, deriving value from interactions with food and the garden: even the largest dishes, with wires affixed in order that they may be hung on walls for display, feature feet for placing on a table or on the ground for use as a communal platter. Yet this rootedness to tradition, function and a personal touch has not deterred him from change. There is an observably different tone in this exhibition from Goldmark’s previous in 2013. In particular, the pots here are darker, with an intense depth of colour in slip and glaze. This is in part the effect of greater experimentation with layerings of slip: many of the square dishes here have had layers of green, brown and especially black (a more prominent colour throughout than the previous show) applied beneath a runny covering of yellow. The resulting surfaces are imbued with a richness of variation: on one slab, yellow

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slip over black beneath, the combination of layers has created bruised fringes of dark mottled green, occasionally levelling out into thicker runs of that unmistakable sun-gold yellow, while patches on the rim, uncovered by the lighter slip, are broken by the crests of luminous black waves. Contrasting this more diverse use of slip, Gérard has also had the courage to leave whole rims and edges unglazed on more pots and to cut with deeper sgraffito, relishing the juxtaposition between the coarse, scorched reds of raw clay and the vibrancy of glistening slip.

Gérard’s deepening and darkening of his pot surfaces demonstrate that he is a master of the slipware medium. Depth in slipware is an immensely difficult thing to achieve; terre vernisée is a necessarily superficial technique, and it is all too easy for the maker to apply slip so that it merely floats two-dimensionally on the top of the clay, failing to make a marriage between surface and underlying form. More importantly, however, is the evidence here of a potter recasting the voice of his work, using the same vocabulary as formed the pottery of previous shows to speak in an entirely different way. Where the 2013 exhibition at Goldmark was characterised by quietness and levity, the rabbit-rimmed dishes of a potter at play, this year’s showing feels stronger and more purposeful, each pot sitting with greater presence and weight in its space. There is still warmth in absolute abundance: tureens and jars have kept their bobble-hat lids, reminiscent of

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104. Large Lidded Jar Green with blue finger spots 44.0 x 28.0 cm

lop-sided clowns crowding together as mixed yellow and brown slip pools at their feet in glazings like creme-brulée crusts or burnt butter. But there is a palpable sense that some of the whimsy from before has been traded in for a little more gravitas, a grounded quality that sustains Gérard’s infectious joy but asserts its importance a little more vocally, as if each pot had stepped up to its plate to announce ‘I’m here.’ If 2013’s pots danced, this year’s selection stand proud and sing.

The late, great poet Seamus Heaney, writing in the literary journal Irish Pages (2002), once described how two American friends, holidaying in Florence on the day the twin towers were struck, dealt with the shock by seeking out and looking hard at the pictures and sculptures they had travelled to see. ‘This was not a case’, he writes, ‘of trying to forget atrocity by escaping into reverie’, but a desire for the ‘upfrontness’ of made things that ‘kept standing their ground…in spite of the shaken state of the world around them.’ Gérard’s deep love for terre vernisée and the reinvigorated ‘presence’ of his pottery makes this exhibition the kind that can ‘stand its ground’, an idiom that aptly captures the essence of earthenware’s rootedness in nature. The quality of vernisée - the veneer of slip, and its aesthetic appeal - is an important aspect of Gérard’s work, affording his forms a sense of life, liveliness and innocence through colour and marking. But ultimately, his pottery is of la terre, clay drawn from the same ground that nourishes and

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154. Medium Salad Bowl Yellow with sgraffito 17.0 x 26.5 cm

feeds us, bears us up beneath our feet - pottery that is grounded precisely because it is a reflection and a celebration of its earthen source. It is no surprise that in this year’s exhibition we see more of the unglazed clay itself, that layers of slip have served to reiterate the shape of the pot beneath, to lend it weight and depth and to invite us, above all, to feel.

When my sister tried to recreate Gérard’s beakers that afternoon, moulding the cup’s walls to the shape of her grasp, she sought to do what Gérard’s pottery has always done - to put clay in our hands and make us feel its worth. His work offers solace, not as something into which we may withdraw or retreat, but as a pottery that sustains through its form, through its warmth and confidence, and through the food it so naturally holds for us. His is a pottery of great humanity; for it gives us the earth.

Max Waterhouse 2015 Max is in his final year at Corpus Christi College, Oxford, reading Classics

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78. Pitcher Yellow with blue, black & brown finger spots 18.0 x 19.0 cm

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126. Small Rectangular Platter Yellow with finger spots 3.5 x 12.0 x 26.0 cm

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9. Large Jar Yellow with sgraffito 59.0 x 36.0 cm

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28. Large Square Slab Dish Yellow & black with sgraffito 8.0 x 48.0 x 48.0 cm

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142. Small Lidded Soup Tureen Blue & yellow 23.0 x 22.0 cm

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86. Medium Vase Yellow with black & blue finger spots. Iron slip 24.0 x 22.0 cm

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117. Small Oval Slab Platter Black & yellow with black finger spots 7.0 x 17.0 x 36.0 cm

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63. Small Square Slab Dish Black & yellow with sgraffito 3.5 x 23.0 x 23.0 cm 26. Small Round Slab Platter Yellow with sgraffito 3.0 x 29.0 cm

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19. Medium Round Slab Platter Yellow with sgraffito 8.0 x 45.0 cm

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BIOGRAPHY Born in 1954 in Brazzaville (Congo); back in France in 1961.

Since then has lived in Southern France.

1983

2nd prize at the Biennial of Châteauroux

1998/99 Musée National de la Céramique de Sèvres purchases several pieces.

2006

6th Mashiko International Ceramics Competition (‘presented for outstanding achievement’)

2008

Purchase by Musée de la Piscine, Roubaix

MAIN EVENTS 1976-78 Student in Jean Biagini's studio, École des Beaux Arts of Aix en Provence.

1978

Creation of first studio in Lorgues (Var) with two fellow ceramicists – working with stoneware.

1979-80 Scholarship from SEMA. Works in Claire Bogino's and Paul Salmona's studio.

1980

Builds his first slipware wood kiln in Lorgues.

1981

First personal studio in Puimoisson (Alpes de Haute Provence) – wood kiln.

1984

Settles in Valensole (Alpes de Haute Provence) – builds a gas kiln.

1993

First trip to Africa to meet the Burkina Faso women potters with Daphne Corregan (works with the potters and selects pots for a Western African exhibition to be held in France).

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97. Small Vase Yellow & green with blue finger spots 19.0 x 16.0 cm

1993

Demonstrating at the ‘Rencontres de la Terre’, Bandol (France).

2001

Visiting artist (January - March) at the Oregon College of Arts and Crafts, in Portland, OR. (USA).

2002

Exhibits in Art Marché (Osaka, Japan) and works in an artist’s residence in the Bizen area.

2005

Visiting artist in Fuping (China).

2006

Visiting artist and workshop at the Archie Bray Foundation (Montana, USA).

2007

Demonstrating in Gulgong, Australia.

2009

Demonstrating at the Aberystwyth Arts Centre and North and South Wales Potters.

2010

Visiting artist in Jingdezhen, China.

RECENT EXHIBITIONS 1995

Galerie du Vieux Bourg, Lonay Les Morges (Switzerland).

1996

Galerie L'Ile en Terre, St Paul de Vence. Exhibits with the painter Jean Arène, Galerie Doudou Bayol, St Rémy de Provence.

1997

Pottenbakker Museum, Tegelen (Holland).

1998

Exposition ‘10 Artistes et la Terre’, Fréjus; Galerie Hamelin, Honfleur; Galerie Geneviève Godard, Lille; Galerie Hilde Holstein, Bremen (Germany).

1999

Musée National de Sèvres; Millennium Exhibition, Amsterdam (Holland).

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33. Large Square Slab Dish Black & yellow 8.0 x 48.0 x 48.0 cm

2000

Galerie Granberger (Sweden); Maison de la Céramique Contemporaine, Giroussens; Galerie Ortillès-Fourcat, Paris; Die Galerie, Hüfingen (Germany).

2001

Contemporary Crafts, Portland (OR – USA); Les Jarres, Atvidaberg (Sweden), ‘The Snake in the Garden’ (touring exhibition of European slipware, England); Galerie du Don (France).

2002

‘Terre Vernissée’ exhibition, Maison de la Céramique en Lubéron; Christel Gnirss Gallery, Emmendingen Mundingen (R.F.A.); Special exhibition in Draguignan, France, for the members of the James Renwick Alliance (Washington, D.C.)

2003

Regards sur la Céramique Contemporaine (3ème Biennale du Grand Pressigny), Contemporary Ceramics Gallery (London, UK).

2004

Souvenir du Sud, Galerie Metzger (Johannesberg, Germany); Slipware (Rufford Craft Centre, UK).

2005

Exhibition with Daphne Corregan (Abbaye d'Arthous, France); Exhibition with Hans Fischer (Galerie Brigit Klee, Darmstadt, Germany); Exhibition in Bizen (Japan); Galerie Handwerk, Coblence (Germany).

2006

Archie Bray Foundation (Montana, USA); Terre de Feu (Brest, France).

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80. Pitcher Black & yellow 18.0 x 19.0 cm

2007

Gudgegong Gallery (Gulgong, Australia); solo exhibition, Centre de Création Céramique (La Borne, France); Galerie 22 (Gordes, France).

2008

Galerie Collections (Paris); Retour de Fuping, Galerie Empreintes (Aydat, France); Keramik Masters (Munich, Germany), Galerie du Don (Montsalvy, France).

2009

Galerie Empreintes (Aydat, France); Galerie Handwerk (Munich, Germany); Galerie du Don (Montsalvy, France); Galerie Metzger (Johannesberg, Germany); Bernard Leach Pottery (St Ives, England).

2010

Galerie Geneviève Godar (Lille, France); SOFA New York; Yingge Museum (Taïwan).

2011

Galerie de l’Ancienne Poste Toucy, France.

Musée National de la Céramique de Sévres, France.

2012

Le Rond dans l’Eau Biarritz, France.

Galerie Geneviève Godar Peisey-Nancroix, France.

2013

Goldmark Gallery, Uppingham, England.

Musée de la Céramique de Sarreguemines, France.

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goldmark

Uppingham, Rutland, LE15 9SQ 01572 821424 Text: © Max Waterhouse 2015 Photographs: © Jay Goldmark Design: Porter / Goldmark ISBN 978-1-909167-21-6 goldmarkart.com

goldmark

Uppingham, Rutland, LE15 9SQ 01572 821424 goldmarkart.com