Anne-Laure Cano London, United Kingdom
I am an artist working primarily with ceramics. I was born in France and now live and work in London where I graduated from City Lit College. My work examines how we respond to emotional experiences such as memories, loss and sense of belonging. I make abstract sculptures that look like they have been found rather than made and challenge our expectations and perception of ceramics.
I use clay to examine how we respond to emotional experiences. I am particularly interested in exploring memories, loss and sense of belonging. In my recent work, I have been looking at the themes of displacement and loss of continuity with one's individual and collective past. Migration and separation, by choice or necessity, has been a recurring trait in my family and it has made me particularly sensitive and interested in exploring those emotional experiences.
Ceramic is the material of choice for me as its flexibility allows me to give form to something that was never tangible in the first place.
I love bric-à-brac, an organised chaos I surround myself with a selection of objects, pieces I make and intentionally break into small parts to reuse them, small pots I made on the wheel and glazed with bright colours, found objects, tin cans, sand, metal. Those fragments, varied objects, this messy lively collection of things constitute the vocabulary I use to create series of abstracts sculptures. I pick them up, mix them with wet clay, stain, grog and other organic components. I knead, mix, sieve, pour, shape…and from all that combinations, emerge odd intriguing abstract sculptures looking more like that they have been found after a deflagration than made. I mostly single fire my piece and use saggar firing when experimenting with various materials.
My pieces, fusing familiar details with unexpected elements, draw the viewer in a dialogue on loss, separation and intimate chaos.
Artwork
Fading signals 32, Ceramics, 2017
Fading signals 32, Ceramics, 2017
Whisper 38, Ceramics, 2018
Fading Signals 33, Ceramics, 2018
Fading signals 49, Ceramics, 2018
Fading Signals 51, Ceramics, 2018
Whisper 22, Ceramics, 2017
Fading Signals 47, Ceramics, 2018
Fading Signals 30, Ceramics, 2018
Whisper 18, Ceramics, 2018
Whisper 0, Ceramics, 2017
Whisper 1, Ceramics, 2018
Whisper 6, Ceramics, 2018
Whisper 39, Ceramics, 2018