- Art & Design
Creativity is power, especially when it allows you to create your own world.French ceramicist Agnès Debizet happily exchanges everyday reality for the cocoon of her art objects.Her pieces often evolve into zoomorphic forms, fantastical creatures and alien entities.We spoke to her about her approach, the process and the physicality of her craft.
In 1980s Paris, Marseille-born Agnès Debizet took evening classes in pottery and ceramics. Although she never took a formal degree, it was the beginning of a flourishing career in which she could develop herself fully. Since then, clay as a material has been her favourite companion. For forty years, she has listened to her intuition and evolved along with the works in her portfolio. You only have to see one design by the artist to never forget the aesthetic direction of her objects. Surreal, alienating and unexpected. It is words like these that, as far as we are concerned, come closest to the core of her philosophy. Naturally, even as a child, she showed an inexhaustible urge to create something with her hands.‘There was a time when I imposed on myself to make something every day, otherwise the day would be wasted,’ she looks back.Back then, she did not yet devote herself to sculptures, but her imagination led to all kinds of different creative acts.Painting, drawing, collage making, embroidery, dancing, writing: there were no limits.For years, she moved purely out of a desire to express her ideas, without considering that people might want to buy them.And whether there was an audience, because by now she has long been a respected and in-demand artist with an audience that marvels every time she comes forward with something new.The path she has taken over the decades is first and foremost thoroughly personal. Her work is her, and she is her work.
Often her pieces evolve into zoomorphic forms, fantastical creatures and alien entities
Debizet falls back on an interdisciplinary range of inspiration. All the things that speak to her meet in the clay with which she makes her genius tangible.She herself hopes to evoke associations in viewers around metamorphoses, energy, nature, mythology and more.She regularly returns to books about ancient civilisations.She particularly praises André Malraux's L'Univers des Formes collection.In everyday life, she is then drawn to the volume of a building, a random composition on the street, a shop window she passes, and so much more.Sometimes she tries to express rather a feeling or a psychic state.Animals, plants and overall nature are obviously also a continuous driving force. You also notice this in the staging in which the art is placed, because on several occasions she has held exhibitions in remarkable locations. In 2002, a group of artists asked for her creative input in a park, and then in a forest. That collaboration became an influential link in Debizet's way of working.Indeed, it was then that she first started to produce collections entirely in the sign of the location in which they were exhibited.In the following years, she mainly focused on similar projects.Each time, her creations entered into a fundamental dialogue with a specific context or place.As a result, she became increasingly skilled as a maker in sculptures driven by a predetermined theme or event.
Curious about the whole article? Read more in the October edition of Imagicasa. Available via onze webshop!
Photography by Alice Mesguich
Text by Cara Jacobs