This week ceramics and poetry are one with Alain Gaudebert. After an exhibition at the Galerie Avenir in the 6th arrondissement of Paris by Jean-Marc Mandalian and Nathalie Dupuis, the latter now makes it a point of honor to present on her stand the work of this artist who is dear to her, whose the complexity of the enamels associated with the beauty of the forms strikes at first sight...
Born in 1937 in Paris, Alain Gaudebert and his parents settled in Nantes during the Second World War. His father, a publisher, passed on to him a taste for culture and the arts.
Very young, he decides to go up as a sailor on deep-sea fishing boats, he spends 5 years at sea. His contact, and the power of the forces of Nature against Man seize him. These themes will be omnipresent in his work as a ceramist. It is by observing the landscapes, also in his various travels, that he will draw his vegetable, animal or mineral inspirations.
After 5 years spent at sea, Alain Gaudebert entered the Arts et Métiers. After his training, he settled in the Puisaye region, as close as possible to the land of Jean Carriès (1855-1894). Several artists would inspire him, but it was above all the work of Carries and Vassil Ivanoff (1897-1973), whom he met in 1972, that marked him and determined his way of working with stoneware: against the current , breaking the codes of traditional ceramics. The latter had also chosen sandstone devoid of refinement, keeping its primitive strength. He upsets the tradition of enamellers, the dosages are shaken up, the temperatures exceeded. His protean works combine sculpture with enamel.
Alain Gaudebert innovates, invents, plays with shapes, enamels and tames fire. He creates ceramics with flowing, superimposed, disordered enamels...
The ceramist first creates colorful projects that could be likened to paintings. He applies the enamel using a variety of brushes, which he handles with precision. He already knows at this time what will be the rendering of his colored enamels, while the products applied will only reveal their colors when fired, in a wood oven, at high temperature (1300°C). The fire intervenes in the result of the project of the artist whose talent is to know how to perfectly control it, to lead it, to balance its influence on the work.
Master of his technique, he seeks in painting, sculpture and graphic design, means of expression in which earth and fire are the mediums. Alain Gaudebert creates powerful pieces, the strength of which recalls his experiences as close as possible to nature, a great source of inspiration.
“mad about enamels and fire” “all this work leaves you speechless, like after a cataclysm from which you miraculously emerge, you don't know if it's beautiful, you feel it's very strong”.
(Robert Deblander)
