01.02 – 10.03
Nomade
Lucie Pillon et Dominique Coenen (ACLB)
Artists in residence in La Borne in 2019
La Borne is a focal point locally, nationally and internationally for the promotion of contemporary ceramic creation. The Contemporary Ceramics Centre of La Borne (CCCLB) and the ACLB (Ceramics Association of La Borne) in partnership with the Drac Centre-Val de Loire, have set up a programme of residencies for artists interested in producing or developing their research in ceramics.
The aim of the Residences project, following on from the revival of this traditional village of potters in the aftermath of the Second World War and in the 1970s due to the arrival of artists from different backgrounds, is to foster the sharing of knowledge, experience and techniques. It means artists from all walks of life can be invited to collaborate with ceramists in La Borne in developing projects for creating work jointly.
The goals of the artist-ceramist production residency include encouraging new experimentation in the medium of ceramics and re-invigorating an existing cultural heritage: a human heritage represented by the artistic work of ceramists, but also the historical heritage, from popular art forms to manufacturing sculptures and domestic objects.
The Research Project
Space is a territory that is sometimes bounded by palpable and impalpable borders. Sometimes it is inhabited, desolate, overpopulated or uninhabitable. At the basis of the research conducted by Lucie Pillon and Dominique Coenen is the notion of habitat, whether it be a precarious or safeguarded one. The residency period provides an opportunity to question issues related to boundaries, territory, conflict and oppression. The notion of habitat, whether undefined, mobile and flexible, or defined and structured, was lived as a format for encounters and reciprocal transgression, guiding the day-to-day production of individual or hybrid pieces. The display space is built in a sensitive space, a sort of “anti-museum” where each piece reveals the complexity of a collective craft and an artistic history.
The Artists
Lucie Pillon
Lucie Pillon graduated from the Ecole Nationale Supérieure d’Art de Bourges in June 2015:
“My sculptural research is driven by issues closely or distantly related to the concepts of boundaries, borders and territory. I pose questions about identification and the positioning of the human before otherness. I pose questions about humans’ need to compartmentalise forms, animals or strangers, but also about their own compartmentalisation. I like to observe, with different degrees of distance and discretion, the answers given up by animals when faced with human decisions. At a very young age, I was made aware of nature and of how it is used. The references from my family made me consider the land as an investment and I had to adapt to its pace and spaces. During my childhood, I observed humans shaping, transforming, and ploughing the land for the purpose of production. In my sculptures, I try to represent my interrogations and to make my interests tangible by bringing together different forms and objects. I remove them from their familiar context, rethink them, remake them. They leave my hands often distorted and are sometimes weakened, reinforced, reshaped or even deformed. I create a duality between the materials I use and the forms I exploit. I attempt to re-appropriate the reality of certain connoted forms to place them on the border between the natural and the artificial. I move pre-existing domains to make them interact in order to construct spaces and linguistic games”.
Dominique Coenen
Ever since Dominique Coenen was a student at the Beaux-Arts de Châtelet and then at the Ateliers d’arts Appliqués in Louvain-La-Neuve in Belgium, she has preferred to focus on the human form. Clay retains the imprints of spontaneous, impulsive shaping, which expresses emotions and feelings. When it is worked in the mass or in coils, it tolerates tears and the force of modelling. It is impregnated with oxides that give its colour specific shades when fired in an electric or wood-fired kiln. The slender figures, with simplified yet expressive silhouettes and faces, are linked by their bodies which are made from the same material. In a couple or grouped, they carve out the inner space of the piece and trace the beginning of a story.
Text: Nicole Crestou, 2020
IMAGES OF THE EXHIBITION
Photograph: Lisa Derevycka
Permanent artistic exhibition
The Ceramics Association of La Borne
This exhibition has been designed by the members of the Ceramic Association of La Borne (ACLB) to reflect the programming of the temporary exhibitions. All year round, you can discover the variety of the traditional or the contemporary, the sculptural or the utilitarian artistic activities of the members of the ACLB.
The association’s dynamism has been demonstrated since 1971 through the organisation of regular events, international meetings and exhibitions, in the former village school for girls and since 2010, in the La Borne Contemporary Ceramics Centre. Currently the Ceramics Association of La Borne has over 70 members made up of thirteen different nationalities, artists who are all located within a radius of 35 kilometres. The members all create unique pieces, utilitarian pottery and sculptures. There are nowdiverse techniques firing methods, but wood-firing still plays a major role, with around thirty kilns currentlyin operation.The Ceramics Association of la Borne operates under the aegis of the Collectif National des céramistes (National Collective of Ceramists). It is a member of the Ateliers d’Art de France (Art Workshops of France) and “devenir art”, an association of the key figuresin the visual arts within the Centre-Val de Loire Region.It works in collaboration with the Communauté de Communes (municipality) of the Terres du Haut Berry, which manages the Contemporary Ceramics Centre of La Borne.
The artists:
Céline ALFROID-NICOLAS, Éric ASTOUL, Jean-Luc BELLEVILLE, Françoise BLAIN, Laurence BLASCO MAURIAUCOURT, Jeltje BORNMAN, Patricia CALAS-DUFOUR , Fabienne CLAESEN, Dominique COENEN, Isabelle CŒUR, Nicole CRESTOU, Suzanne DAIGELER, DALLOUN , Stéphane DAMPIERRE , Bernard DAVID, Corinne DECOUX, Ophélie DEERELY, Rachid DJABELA, Claude GAGET, Agnès GALVAO, Dominique GARET, Laurent GAUTIER, Geneviève GAY, Pep GOMEZ, Frans GREGOOR, Catherine GRIFFATON, Jean GUILLAUME, Claudie GUILLAUME-CHARNAUX, Viola HERING, Roz HERRIN, Svein HJORTH-JENSEN, Jean JACQUINOT, Pierre JAGGI, Anne-Marie KELECOM, LABBRIGITTE, Daniel LACROIX, Jacques LAROUSSINIE, Dominique LEGROS, Christine LIMOSINO-FAVRETO, Claire LINARD, Guillaume M0REAU, Machiko HAGIWARA, François MARECHAL, Joel MAROT, Elisabeth MEUNIER, Maya MICENMACHER-ROUSSEAU, Francine MICHEL, Isabelle Marylène MILLERIOUX, Isabelle PAMMACHIUS, Nadia PASQUER, Christine PEDLEY, Lucien PETIT, Jean-Luc PINCON, Charlotte POULSEN, Françoise QUINEY, Michèle RAYMOND, Anne REVERDY, Sylvie RIGAL, ROCHINA Alicia, Lulu ROZAY, Hervé ROUSSEAU, Nicolas ROUSSEAU, Karina SCHNEIDERS, Georges SYBESMA, Diane TRUTI, Jean-Pol URBAIN, Nirdosh Petra VAN HEESBEEN, Claude VOISIN, David WITHEHEAD, Seungho YANG.
IMAGES OF THE EXHIBITION
Photograph: Lisa Derevycka
Exhibitions from 1st February to 10 March, 2020.
Opening Saturday, 1st February from 6pm to 9pm preceded by a conference of Dominique Coenen and Lucie Pillon at 5pm.
Open every day from 11 am to 6 pm.