Jean-François REBOUL - Céramiste plasticien

As a ceramist, I have been practicing the "Raku" firing technique for many years.

If we speak of Raku as a technique for firing clay objects, it is above all *the fruit of a meeting, in 16th century Japan, of a craftsman and a scholar.

If this technique is similar to primitive firing, the mastery of the material has the depth, poetry, fullness and sophistication of the simple thing. The bowl being the symbolic representation.

Shaping the bowl from a ball of clay, with only the hand as a tool, remains the most original creative act.

Taking this bowl out of the incandescent "mouth" of the kiln with a pair of tongs, after the molten glaze has covered it like a skin of magma, is the mystery of alchemy, the miraculous and the enchantment. This relationship with matter links us to Nature and awakens us to the Elements.

Raku is an opening onto the world, a "re-cognition" of the self. And if we stop at the sensations experienced, it is the magic of a volcano. From the fragile and ephemeral object, the fire freezes it for eternity.

For the larger pieces, I use concrete as a structure and I work on the surfaces with various materials such as wood, paper, stone, glass paste, copper or gold leaf, textiles... The forms are simple, sometimes pure and always handmade. For me, they are a cosmological representation of the universe.

* Raku file" Camille Virot 1985