ESSAY BY ANNE DRESSEN, CURATOR OF THE MUSEUM OF MODERN ART, PARIS SYLVIE AUVRAY, THE ARTIST WHO LIKED STONE.
For her exhibition at Carpenters Workshop Gallery, Auvray created !gurative silver rings that depict faces with precious stones and minerals in the place of eyes, noses and mouths. These stones are procured from Carion, the renowned mineral and meteorite boutique on Ile”St”Louis, as well as on the beach
For this occasion, Auvray conceived of a new way of showing these pieces, with the jewellery existing this time simultaneously with and without the body, in the manner of crowns that were placed on cushions thereby representing the power of the ruler in absentia. She has also produced cubby bins that are partly !lled and whose texture falls somewhere between the eccentricity of the contemporary sloppy craft style and the ‘fat lava’ style of the 1950s. Her altars are imbued with relief and colour afforded by the effects of humidity produced by the enamels and their metallic oxides as well as glass powder and other accidents during the !ring process. Auvray has deliberately incorporated the results of previous mis!rings, combining various types of clay !red at different temperatures that are by nature incompatible.
For this occasion, Auvray conceived of a new way of showing these pieces, with the jewellery existing this time simultaneously with and without the body, in the manner of crowns that were placed on cushions thereby representing the power of the ruler in absentia. She has also produced cubby bins that are partly !lled and whose texture falls somewhere between the eccentricity of the contemporary sloppy craft style and the ‘fat lava’ style of the 1950s. Her altars are imbued with relief and colour afforded by the effects of humidity produced by the enamels and their metallic oxides as well as glass powder and other accidents during the !ring process. Auvray has deliberately incorporated the results of previous mis!rings, combining various types of clay !red at different temperatures that are by nature incompatible.
Sylvie Auvray transforms utilitarian objects into art, and in doing so raises the status of jewellery far beyond that of a mere accessory into the realm of sculpture.
Sylvie Auvray’s works recall the magni!cent ceramic gardens by Raoul Dufy and Artigas, as well as the stoneware by the master Renaissance ceramicist Bernard Palissy, whose fantastical depictions of #ora and fauna are as enchanting as they are repulsive; her pieces are also reminiscent of neo-Dada artist Daniel Spoerri’s petri!ed assemblages of food. One also thinks of Pandora’s box, that physical representation of curiosity that, in the original Greek myth, is in fact an earthenware urn much like Sylvie Auvray’s receptacles, with the difference being that hers are unique repositories for jewellery.
Furthermore, rather than keeping tightly lidded the evils of the world, Auvray’s metamorphic creations are un!nished canvases that rely instead on the beholder to bring forth their meaning and latent power.
These pieces encourage an experience that seeks to stretch and expand our subjectivity, like a meditative yohen bowl or a cross-section of an amethyst, both of which reveal the immense complexity and beauty of the universe.
On one of her small bowls we see the outline of a ladder, a reference to those placed next to adobe (mudbrick) structure by the Hopi Indians. The ladder in Sylvie Auvray’s work is also loaded with signi!cance, offering an invitation into her imagination; a world consisting of faience, stoneware, porcelain, pearls, powder but also of silver, black spinel, coral, black tektite, pink tourmaline, nebulous apophyllite, smoky quartz, hessonite garnet, menilite opal, amethyst, vibrant citrine, cavansite, ferrous magnetite, emerald-green tsavorite, desert glass and Oriental pearl…these names conjure up images and associations that transcend time and space. If pottery is a process that eliminates all organic form, Sylvie Auray’s artistry lies in her remarkable ability to breathe life back into these pieces, imbuing them with a vivacious energy that is undeniable.
A protuberance of opal menilite emerges from one of her insect-rings, as much a de!ant ball of chewing gum as a speech bubble from a comic strip….her jewellery seeks to speak to us. All jewellery requires a maker, a wearer and a spectator. Jewellery creates and enacts meaning, wielding agency in the process much like ancient Korean and Chinese dream stones.
Sylvie Auvray’s jewellery rewards, without a doubt, those that are willing to engage all of their senses through listening, touching, and seeing these enigmatic pieces…Leaning more towards the oeuvre of Roger Caillois than the Surrealistes, Sylvie Auvray departs from conventional wisdom as it pertains to jewellery, ceramic and even childhood…her work outmanoeuvres obstacle, diffuses con#ict and, in !ne, perpetually seeks to bring about a peaceful reconciliation between light and dark, hard and soft, seduction and repulsion…in essence, a harmonious bridging of life’s contrasts.
