FOUILHOUX Jean-François, ceramic, permanent artist of Galerie Capazza since 2000

Since my installation in Mont-près-Chambord in 1976, I study celadon, seeking unobtainable information in books.

Ten years later, in 1986, a weighing error leads me towards this mesmerizing, mythical, satin and translucent material, to which I still devote all my mind and all my time. Although today I regained the technical principles that govern the formation of the famous "fat reflection”, I multiply tirelessly testing, always looking for a new perfection in the quality of a satin tone or in the shade of a tone.

Celadon provides a sensation of sweetness, a sense of infinite depth. In contrast, this serenity allows me to exalt tension, some drama in the complex, vivid and sometimes twisted sculptures.

The outside parts are carved from a block of very soft clay. Forms barely organized but dynamic, abundant and nervous, drawn in a quick gesture, then take birth, retaining at their surface traces of this brutal and passionate genesis.

After an early drying, the clay is hardened and I dig inside. The action is lasting, clay became hard, the lines tighten then become set, and surfaces smooth. Some edges, projections more or less tapered will then fill the vacuum, rhythm and organize it. They are the idea and thought I aggregates with most sensual forms from the outside. On the most recent sculptures, the modeling of a fleshy lip opposes the tension of a line sharp as a blade where the material disappears. The opposition between the indefinite and the defined greatly attracts me, and underpins my work. I like this progression from the effect of material where everyone can let his fantasy enter, to a well-defined form which expresses a symbolic aesthetic universe.

Jean-François Fouilhoux

What represents for me the path of a successful artist is his ability to create a work that will stand the test of time.

In this sense, Jean-François Fouilhoux's career is exemplary.
His work is both timeless and universal; by the choice he made to concentrate his research on celadon, to the point of excelling in the technical mastery of this enamel from Asia, and above all by the choice to rely on this technique to develop a formal statement that he has been able to develop over the decades.

Starting from the earth to go towards the sky, inviting the viewer to a sensory journey, among the folds and folds, the transparencies and cracks.

One discovers in each line the strength of the gesture which determined it. We perceive this vibratory impulse, the meeting of the full and the empty, a fragile balance that echoes our human condition. Like a link that we could finally weave between cultures, a language that each being could decipher and share.

Art as a universal language, what better to hope for?

Laura Capazza-Durand