LARGE KIMONOS

WHETHER ANCIENT OR CONTEMPORARY, SIMPLE OR CEREMONIAL, KIMONOS FASCINATE AND INSPIRE ME.

GRAND KIMONO D’ETE   190 x 180 x 50 cm

Bronze medal 2013 Société Nationale des Beaux-Arts, Paris.       Steel plates/ waxed cotton / lacquered metal rack

During my stay at the Ceramic center of Shigaraki in Japan in 2011, I took the opportunity to visit  a few kimono exhibitions, showing their great richness and diversity. 

I had already explored this traditional garment many times  in my work, loving to play with the folds of the fabric, but on my return to France another approach was born.

I wanted to make my own kimono, life size and present it on a rack inspired by those I had seen in Japan.

The approach is new to me, being used to casting in the round, because it is a vertical and flat presentation, as are real cloth kimonos.

First I chose steel, a material that I had never worked before and that I  coloured in various shades of brown and gold. I played with the idea of a piece that would have gone through time and should have kept the traces of a bygone past, like the ones of samourais with their very specific armour.

A second one was born quickly, in stoneware plates with patterns of autumn leaves.