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DESSAUVAGE Tjok, ceramic, permanent artist of Galerie Capazza since 2005

“Pots full of magical poetry

Over the years, the ceramist Tjok Dessauvage appropriated a universe of forms and signs that materialize each time more in experimental pottery studios.

The artistic concept of Dessauvage is based on basic shapes: hemisphere, cylinder and cone. He manages to propel an inner tension in these body volumes, developed on the potter's wheel. In ceramic forms, other aspects appear, like striped reliefs or signs on the surface. These elements have their origin in the areas of the most varied life: nature, technique, history, visual arts, and film sequence. Plastic sign, united to the pot, becomes the bearer of specific information. Thanks to the clever application of some ancient techniques for creating (for example, the technique of "terra sigilata"), the ceramic material - clay - emphasizes human history without artificial archaisms. Dessauvage gives a resonance to the meaning that he found in the materials, volumes, or signs and that he had himself re-imagined. Signs or symbols, based on fantasy or actual experiences, took an imagined poetic form; they broadcast contents that can still be found sporadically in cultures, rites and myths of archaic societies. This echo of mythical voices, sometimes unconsciously perpetuated in us, and realized here in a contemporary form, gives the works "magic things."

(…)The artist creates a personal cosmos with elementary and artistic ways to capture the world in all its impenetrability and its mystery. In the context of art, the link with present occurs only in symbolic structures; they mark their mark on the work of the artist Tjok Dessauvage, who gives shape with pottery to our existence, as a nerve center of memories and experiences”.
Frank Nievergel

Biography

Born in 1948, in Izegem, Belgium
As a child, he observes with attention the sites of excavation just next to his school. He experiences a quite particular interest for the fragments of ceramic and Roman potteries found.
Later, he takes the decision to join the Hoger Institute of Ghent (Belgium) and follows a preparatory year for the ceramic. He learns the shooting on potter's wheel, then the glazing, with Joost Maréchal, pioneer of the contemporary ceramic.

He does not end his studies and decides to continue the art of the ceramic in self-taught.

His work raises the subject of the archetypal shape, the medium of researches varied, inspired by the nature of the signs and the symbols, reinvented according to the antique techniques of "Terra Sigillata", of which it became one of the biggest specialists.*

Member of the International Academy of Ceramics

Awards

Inax Design Prize, Japan

Faenza, Premio Faenza, 48^e Concorso Internazionale, Italy

Biennale de Spiez, Swiss

Triennale de la Porcelaine, Prix de la Ville de Nyon, Swiss

Prix Henry Van de Velde, Gand, Belgium

Prix de la Flandre Occidentale, Belgium

Prix Tunis-Nabeul, Tunisy

Prix Peers-Hatfield, Great Britain

Selected Exhibitions

Actualité de la céramique européenne, Hagenau, France

Centre d’exposition,La Borne, Henrichemont, France

8^ème Biennale de Céramique, Châteauroux, France

Inax Galery, Tokyo, Japan

48^e Concorso Internazionale, Faenza, Italy

Art and Crafts, Kanazawa, Japan

Form und Glasur, Hoechst, Germany

Gaerie Böwig, Hannovre, Germany

IV Triennale de la Porcelaine, Nyon, Swiss

Galerie Le Vieux Bourg, Lonay sur Morges, Swiss

Galerie Sarver, Paris, France

AIC, Saga, Japan

Keramion, céramique européenne, Frechen, Germany

Museum Sierkunsten, Gent, Belgium

Galerie B15, Munich, Germany

Maison de la Céramique, Mulhouse, France

Palais Horrach, Vienne, Austria

Röhsska Museum, Gothenburg, Sweden

Musée des Arts Décoratifs, Paris, France

Canadian Glass and Clay Gallery, Ontario, Canada

International Exhibition, Mino, Japan

Clara Koch Gallery, Amsterdam, Netherlands

Noodingang Cultureel Centruum, Roeselare, Belgium

Europen Ceramics, Hohr-Grenshausen, Germany

Grafiker 2000, Haarlem, Netherlands

Form und Glasur, Frankfurt, Germany

Galerie Pierre, Paris, France

AIC, Athenes, Greece

Galerie Laimböck, Landsmeer, Netherlands

Victoria and Albert Museum Collect, Londres, United Kingdom

AIC, Seoul, Korea

Musée de Deinze, Belgium

AIC, Riga, Lithuania

Carlin Gallery, Paris, France

Galerie Wijland, Koksijde, Belgium

Galerie Capazza, Nançay, France

Public Collections

Musée d’Art Moderne, Ostende, Belgium

Musée des Arts Appliqués, Hambourg, Germany

Collection Thiemann, Hambourg, Germany

Musée de Châteauroux, France

Musée de Courtrai Belgium

Musée Frans Hals, Haarlem, Netherlands

Musée International de Céramique, Faenza, Italia

Collection Frank Nievergelt, Swiss

Collection AIC, Saga, Japan

Public Art Museum Mc Dougall, New-Zeland

Musée des Arts Appliqués, Lausanne, Swiss

Musée des Arts Appliqués, Gand, Belgium

Olympiade Culturelle, Athènes, Greece

Musée de Deinze

World Ceramics Foundation, Séoul, Korea

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