Nadia Pasquer

September 7 to November 7, 2013

Nadia Pasquer. Porcelain-covered white polyhedron and smoky earth black polyhedron 2014

Presented for the first time at the Toucy gallery, Nadia Pasquer's work occupies a unique place on the contemporary ceramics scene.
After studying art and teaching drawing in Paris, Nadia Pasquer turned to ceramics in 1974, initially creating stoneware sculptures inspired by nature. From 1990 onwards, her work and preoccupations shifted towards smoky terracotta and abstract forms, whose mastery and specificity made her famous.
Exhibited in the major contemporary art centres such as New York, Miami and Basel, Nadia Pasquer's work has gained international recognition.

The smoldering technique dates back to ancient times, from Egypt to Japan. Carefully polished pottery is fired in a reduced atmosphere, with no external oxygen. In Nadia Pasquer's work, the combined effect of these firings, of engobes of varying thickness and color, and of the slow work of polishing, enables her to create an infinite range of matte, satin or glossy effects, in a range of warm tones from white to the deepest black. The terracotta volumes are the result of an intuitive declension of the five Platonic bodies - the "perfect solids". Without base or meaning, they are placed on a point of equilibrium, carrying within them their center and their movement.
Each object is unique. The whole forms a unity. Polished, engraved and perforated to inscribe a celestial cartography, the sculpted elements are named "star polyhedra" by the artist because, for her, quoting Gaston Bachelard in "La terre et les rêveries de la volonté", these two words contain "... a celestial cartography". the synthesis of images of the deep earth and images of the starry sky; an astonishing synthesis of constellating reverie and crystalline reverie"..
Smoked out, the volumes are shiny black, both capturing and emitting light - objects for contemplation. Left in their whiteness, they draw light and shadow in soft or extreme contrast.