Kneading and stamping, sculptural ceramics
- Karine shapes her clay with a sculptor’s gestures, and hands and feet
- The creative process itself fascinates her
- She began making ceramics in her living room
Karine Benvenuti studied visual arts and worked as a graphic designer, but took another path to devote herself to ceramics after meeting Bernard Soleil, the ceramicist who lives in her village. “He gave me the desire to finally put my hands into clay.” He introduced her to working with clay, and she rapidly developed her own self-taught techniques based on three inseparable words: research, experience, gesture. Karine enjoys getting lost in shapes and in the making process of her creations. She is inspired by her environment, her culture, and her life experiences. “Every sculpture, every moment shared with a sculpture, transports me towards something else, towards another creation, another reflection. For this reason, each sculpture is unique. It all belongs to and defines a precise and special moment of my existence.”
Interview
- What was the first object you made?
- They looked like little volcanoes. I worked a block of earth by kneading it and trying to give it a shape that suited me, a life in space. Then I hollowed out this shape. The gesture became important and the marks that I left in the clay found their place.
- Do you master any specific techniques?
- I have developed my own techniques and I make my own tools to do certain very specific things. I also use traditional techniques and borrow tools that belong to other trades. I also observe how other craftsmen work and it gives me ideas on how to apply these methods to my own practice.
- How would you define what you do?
- It is above all an expressive approach. I have the feeling that I have things to say, questions to ask about the living, and working clay gives me answers, an identity, a reason for being.
- What advice do you give to a young person who wants to work as a ceramicist?
- Patience is perhaps the most important quality. But there is also curiosity, research, passion, humility in the face of the material and the problems that we encounter. I learned a lot by finding myself in front of failed or disappointing firing. Do not be afraid to question yourself and above all tell yourself that nothing is a done deal.
Karine Benvenuti is a master artisan: she began her career in 2000 and she started teaching in 2017
Where
Karine Benvenuti
