Montreal, Canada, 2010-09-29 –

A designer by training, France Goneau uses unique methods to create ceramic sculptures. In the spring of 2010, she received a grant from the Conseil des arts et des lettres du Québec and went to Japan for a three-month artist’s residency. 

The pieces that she produced during her stay at the famous Shigaraki Ceramic Cultural Park evidence both great power and the delicacy of carefully executed manual work. 

Until October 17, Goneau’s brand-new series JAPON will be on view in the gallery space of the boutique À table tout le monde. These pieces – improbable territories, fragmented cities, imaginary paths – offer worlds that embody the essence of a landscape.

Goneau’s new production, assemblages rich in texture and detail, showcase her mastery of her medium and mark an important step in her career. For this project, she has produced miniaturized ceramic elements, then has rethought geographic space and its pictorial representation to create objects with an unpredictable and moving dynamic. She uses our emotional fascination with ornamentation as an inventive force. 

France Goneau is interested in architecture, but her essential influence is the metaphorical language of the landscape. Her work can be compared to topologies. The visual richness and chromatic simplicity of the wall reliefs reveal an experience tending toward sculpture. In putting together her pieces, Goneau endows opaque, resistant materials with incomparable refinement and power. She also appropriates fabrics and sewing techniques to create forms invested with both labour and femininity. The works combine a minimalist aesthetic and a quiet strength from which a perplexing sensibility emanates. 

Ceramist France Goneau is an established artist, a graduate of the School of Design at UQAM and holds a bachelor’s degree in visual arts. Her ceramics have been shown, won awards, and been covered by the media first in Quebec, then in the United States, and now in Japan. In the spring of 2010, one of her tiles won first prize at the Elit-Tile International Ceramic Tile Triennial, a major exhibition featuring more than 350 tiles from 91 countries. 

The exhibition JAPON continues until October 17, 2010. The artist will be on site for the duration of the exhibition. 

À table tout le monde 
361 Rue St-Paul West, Montreal 
M-F 10:00 a.m.–7:00 p.m. S-S 10:00 a.m.–6:00 p.m. 

Photograph: Martin Tremblay
www.lepinch.com