Mother Earth 2023 / 1 Sculpture

Born in Canada in 1957, I grew up in Argentina. As far as I can remember, I have always been making things with my hands. Combined with the fact that my family has been in industrial ceramics (Villeroy&Boch) since eight generations, falling into clay at the age of 10 can be considered a natural choice of media. First as a hobby, and later as autodidact, I followed ceramic courses, learning technology and wheel throwing. In 1990 I moved to Switzerland and became a professional ceramicist after 5 years of ceramic art school. For 25 years I divided my time between teaching ceramics and exhibiting my sculptures in Switzerland, France, Germany, Luxembourg, Italy, Croatia and Canada. In 2017 I moved my studio to the Piemonte in Northern Italy where I spend a good part of the year. The geological construction of mountains and rocks contain the story of our terrestrial world. They are transformed through time, erosion, pressure and heat. Inspired by this process, I make my own clay by accumulating and layering different clays, porcelains, stonewares, coloured engobes and glazes. My sculptures become mini geological frescoes reproducing in a shortened time the same processes of fusion, colouring, deformation, cracking and melting. The strata are like a skin where layer upon layer the stages of time and life are conserved. They form a whole that reflects my concern to place man in context with the geological world in an inseparable and fragile equilibrium.