Pauline Bonnet
Pots Pourris Large

This unique sculptural vessel is one of Pauline Bonnet’s ‘Pots Pourris’: distinctive due to its raw texture, irregular shapes and the subtle iridescent qualities of the glaze. As part of her graduation project, Pauline glazed large vases with the extremely toxic substances of lead and barium. This was done as a way to deal with her personal anxieties: transforming pain into beauty. Furthermore, the ‘Pots-Pourris’ are a meditation on the inherent dangers of the materials used in ceramics both at an individual level and on a global ecological scale. Ceramic is not biodegradable, and many of the materials used such as metallic oxides can be quite toxic, so her work invites us to think critically of what we create, produce and consume. The pieces she created for Metamorphoses do not use the toxic materials, but maintain the same haptic and visual qualities as their predecessors. An emerging ceramic artist based in Marseille, Pauline experiments with colour, texture and various materials to create sophisticated objects that question the status of decorative art.