Anne Verdier
Les Affleurants
9 July – 8 September 2016
Anne Verdier – Affleurant 2016 – réf 13-2016.
The Galerie de l’Ancienne Poste dedicates its summer exhibition, 2016 to the visual ceramic artist Anne Verdier, presented for the first time in the space of the gallery specialized in the contemporary artistic ceramic.
Anne Verdier is related to the current of young emerging ceramic artists who are radically changing the face of French contemporary ceramics.
With a background in scientific research in biology, Anne Verdier became passionate about ceramic research at the turn of the century. Her work has rapidly entered the great private collections, artistic interventions and exhibitions have multiplied and in 2008 led to the SOFA of New York and more recently to the International Biennale CeraMIX in Korea, and in Shanghai in 2014.
This solo show allows the artist to present an outstanding selection of eighteen works called ‘The Affleurants” – sculptures of clay which carry the impression of the rocky outcrops which surround her workshop, situated between Beaujolais and Monts du Forez. Volumes in which the glaze reinforces the traces of modelling and reveals the power of the mineral.
Those having a classic image of ceramics, as objects of ideal shapes and smooth surfaces, risk to be surprised, even disconcerted when faced with the work developed over 15 years by Anne Verdier. Born in 1977, the young artist focuses on freeing ceramics from formal perfection in favour of experimentation. For her, order is born of chaos and beauty of accident. Despite her obvious technical mastery, she is never in an optic of demonstrating her savoir-faire. Her approach is that of a sculptor who abandons herself to the material, who models it, fashions it, and also sometimes mistreats it. From this powerful confrontation with the earth raw, imperfect, in which she has chosen to mix glaze or porcelain – emerges abstract constructions of great expressive strength. Thus “The Affleurants”, her most recent creations, are unveiled this summer at the Galerie de L’Ancienne Poste.
Guillaume Morel
Journalist & Art Critic,
Extracts from the exhibition catalogue, published by the Galerie de l’Ancienne Poste.
Anne Verdier’s works
