image

Art & Design

Marie-José d'Aprile

Her artistic strain has shone through in many different ways throughout her life, in her writing, in theatre and in the reworking of furniture and objects of art. “I have always had an attraction to ceramics, while keeping a certain distance from this material. Perhaps because deep down I knew that the moment I sank my hands into clay I would never go back”, Marie-José says.

Her interest in ceramics was reignited to great effect back in 2006, in Tunisia, where she was staying for work reasons. Fascinated by the craftsmanship of the local artisans, masters of centuries-old manufacturing techniques developed in the Mediterranean since the dawn of human civilisation, Marie-José decided to spend part of her free time going to pottery classes given by a young Tunisian artist. “I thought it would just be therapeutic as I sought to get back some kind of balance in my hectic work life. But it was a thunderbolt, and from there I have never looked back”, the artist recalls.

image
image

Her working life then took her to Rome where she met Daniela Vacca, with whom she was able to hone her technique for ceramics and glazes. It was during the four years in the studio of this Roman ceramicist and artist that Marie-José began to realise that an important chapter of her life was by now coming to an end, as the call to take up a creative career became ever more pressing and insistent. Marie-José senses in ceramics an organic contact with the primitive essence of the earth, capable of completely overturning her rational and intellectual inclinations. “In my work it is clay that guides me. You have always to be there in the moment with what you are doing and creating, to achieve total communion with the material”, the artist says. Her manual work allows her to convey emotions through the creation of three-dimensional objects that demand involvement of multiple senses. They are the result of both methodical processing of ideas and concepts, and momentary and irrational intuitions.

image

Maria-Jose’ favours terracotta, a type of clay requiring long firing at low temperature, and she has been devoting herself consistently to this material since her move to Como in 2019. The artist’s eager propensity for experimentation however means that she never lost sight of the multiplicity of languages and expressive possibilities offered by other types of ceramic techniques and other forms of artistic expression. Alongside the more traditional processes, Marie-José also combines sophisticated and ancient techniques, such as bucchero, of Etruscan origin, and ancient Japanese raku firing. This latter technique involves a preliminary biscuit firing followed by a second step in the kiln at a temperature ranging from 750 to 850 °C. Once this temperature is reached, the object is taken out of the kiln still glowing and is then dipped in sawdust, paper, or water, which gives it a thermal shock. It is this last stage of the creative process, governed by the unpredictability of the chemical reactions, that gives Marie-José's creations a fascinating and imperfect appearance, made up of contrasts between rough and smooth surfaces and between garish colours and deepest blacks.

image
image

Marie-José's works are always highly textured and organic, are hand modelled, and often draw inspiration from natural elements and from the environment in which they are produced. “Since I've been living and working in Como, I've been very inspired by the foamy white of the waves and the blue of the sky and water, colours that are in fact quite new to me, but which now turn up repeatedly in my more recent works”, says the artist. Despite her predilection for ceramics and sculpture, Marie-José has never lost her curiosity for other art media, such as painting and photography, which over the years have influenced and pervaded her work. On the occasion of the group exhibition “Seeing Ourselves in the Other Through Contemporary Art” (Jan. 20-21, 2023), curated by Italian-Palestinian photographer Mustafa Sabbagh, Marie-José had the opportunity to engage some ceramic works in a dialogue with her own photographs documenting the complex creative processes behind her works. The result was an intense and compelling introspective journey of discovery of her intimate relationship with ceramics and her constantly evolving artistic identity.