Artist in Residence: Quentin Marais
This new international residency focuses on ceramics, working in partnership with Passerelle Centre d’art contemporain in Brest and La Criée Contemporary Art Centre in Rennes, Brittany, aiming to develop cultural exchange in the field of craft specifically.
Quentin Marais is an established artist / potter from Brittany, France. He studied ceramics in Paris and in the south of France, developing his practice through exhibition commissions, residencies, performance, and collective sculpture. Clay is his favourite material for creation. He realises his pieces in stoneware or porcelain; with plate, modelling, or combined then fired in oxidation at 1280°.
Initially, his work was built around childhood; imagination and memories of places, towns, cities, objects, and daily life from this period. He creates with the gestures, games, drawings and colours of his youth. His work oscillates between utilitarian and sculptural objects, bouncing between figurative and abstraction. Clay gives him this freedom, offering a plasticity between the useful and the useless and reveals the link between the imaginary and the concrete.
This exchange programme has given the Welsh ceramic artist Bonnie Grace and the Bretton artist Quentin Marais the opportunity to have a 1 month residency in Brittany and Wales. Thank you to Visual Arts Group Wales, Arts Council Wales, Passerelle Centre d’art contemporain and La Criée Contemporary Art Centre for funding this project.
