The Atelier Piquifou
Brigitte and Jean-Marc Millet
There’s no accounting for taste and color. Brigitte and Jean-Marc Millet not only have color, but also a very good taste, a strange taste, coming from elsewhere…
Thoses statues made with sandstone meet the three conditions that create an interesting work. They have substance, form and above all color . Only the excellent pieces made with ceramic meet this 3 criteria. And when you know how technically hard it is to relate those 3 steps, the spectator is enticed to say “Bravo!”.
THE SUBSTANCE used is the most noble substance. This is the archetypal substance, the one that we all come from: “Dust you are, dust you will return”, says the Genèse.
Clay soil is a smooth substance, she allows the artist to become also a demiurge.
It is also surprising to see that from the same white soil, many different characters will uprise.
Black color, white color or yellow color come from the same clear paste. The blending between clay and crushed soil gives to the form a texture almost alive coming from its irregularity. A “graphité” expands the clothes substance, which is truly astonishing.
Then THE FORME It is rather rangy, almost immoderate, following the example of our models during fashion shows on podiums. Is this elongation a view of mind or rather an above aspiration, a sort of sublimation? They are men and women on their way towards a better world?
Every detail is carefully studied and realised like earrings, hats, sets of jewels, necklesses, haircuts. It points up an undeniable hieratic nobility and a mystery never resolved. Forms that come from a strange imaginary haunt our dreams, like if the whole people were forming a single family.
Finally THE COLOUR, the final touch is realised after a first firing or “biscuit”.
Tincture requires a second firing that bstowed to the whole an extraordinary life.
Colors used are often the prmary colors : Red, Yellow, Blue. Then, we add the Black color resulted from the smoking or the White color resulted from the “engobe” (thin covering created from diluted clay), which respect the original light color.
A piece of gold (metallic oxide), reveals a light brightness to statues’jewellery.
Those colors which are chocking colors, reveal the fire temperament of Brigitte and Jean-Marc Millet.
Within the Atelier Piquifou, you are immersed into an original and fertile ceramic work made with a fully controlled proficiency.
This is also a trip over time and space, a trip around the Earth, a link between the whole mens, our “Brothers”…
Corinne Roos