Laurent Craste is a Montreal-based, French artist whose work is a contemporary take on ceramics making. The artist recreates his own version of a common object like the vase, adding features like nails and flags to his uniquely-shaped artworks.
“My research considers the object as a social indicator, a ‘sign bearer’. Considered as instruments of political power, ideological vehicles, demonstrations of ostentatious luxury and economic power, but also as incarnations of emotions and experiences, the historical archetypes of decorative arts consummately provide me with useful material,” he explains on his website.
Seeing his material as a bearer of symbols and social customs, Craste recreates these classic porcelain models by altering their image, commenting on their purpose and re-imagining their form. These decorative objects become works of art in the hands of the talented artist, who aims to give them a fun, more interesting state of existence.
“Via this approach, I have recently turned my attention to an interdisciplinary practice that combines decorative objects and video in a totally original way, using ceramic models as screens for video projections. These corruptions, formal and iconographic, as they reassess the historical, social, political and aesthetic values of the decorative object, also reveal an intense and ambiguous relationship with it.”
by Agape Charmani
