Jean-Nicolas Gérard's 5th Major UK Exhibition Walkthrough | GOLDMARK

We have been filling our own kitchens with Gérard’s life-affirming slipware for over a decade now. Every summer we dispatch a lucky team to the south of France to bring back fresh supplies of Gérard’s pots (and some Provençal sun, too). https://www.goldmarkart.com/ ‘Jean-Nicolas Gérard’s work throws its arms wide and feels no embarrassment whatsoever. It is an unrestrained celebration of clay and colour, of shape and form and volume, of sitting down together round a table and eating and drinking.’ – author Mark Haddon Born in Brazzaville, Congo, in 1954, at the age of six Gérard’s family relocated to the hills north of Cannes and, a little later, Marseille, where he discovered his love of pottery as a student in a ‘post-68, Zen’ ceramics studio: ‘Straight away I liked it – I could spend eight hours a day in that workshop.’ A second stroke of luck introduced him to the potter Jean Biagini, professor at the Ecole des Beaux Arts in Aix-en-Provence. Biagini’s experience working in Nepal, Cambodia, Japan and the US would inspire Gérard’s own interest in Japanese and Korean pottery and their spirit of creative freedom and form. In 1983 he opened his own studio in Valensole, in the south of France, where he has worked ever since, producing loose, lively terre vernissée (the French term for slip-decorated earthenware) and enlivening local traditions of slipware pottery. Gérard is a potter that understands the importance of pots that nourish: everything he makes is intended to be functional. Adjoining his studio is a garden plot, an oasis of overgrown greenery and summer sun, in which he grows vegetables, herbs, and flowers. Preparing clay one minute and bread-dough the next, his work is a celebration of the natural abundance that surrounds him. Gérard’s bowls and plates immediately brighten a laid table and elevate meals to moments of delicious communion. Unlike most potters, he seldom makes them in identical sets; each plate is an individual arrangement of sgraffito scars, finger spots, motifs and gestural marks. Performed at speed with the tip of a teaspoon or an improvised implement, lines are scratched over and around the surface of his pots, leaving dynamic, abstract designs cut into the clay. His large-scale works – giant jars and enormous square platters – are a tour-de-force of spontaneous decoration. ‘Gérard has long been known as “the potter’s potter”, so admired is he among colleagues. His pots bring human warmth, wit, and generosity to an increasingly remote and digital world. More than that, they have changed the way we eat and think about food here at the gallery. I start every day with a bowl, a beaker, a plate of Gérard’s. I invite you to do the same, and welcome some of these wonderful pots into your home.’ – Mike Goldmark Goldmark Films Goldmark Films is the Pro Moviemaker Filmmaker of the Year and four-times Royal Television Society Award nominated independent film making arm of the world-renowned Goldmark Gallery. It has been producing broadcast arts documentaries for over 20 years and has made 24 feature length documentaries and 100 plus shorts. Goldmark's global reputation allows it to gain intimate and revealing interviews with some of the world's leading artists, ceramicists, writers and critics. Its films on contemporary artists are complemented by a stable of programmes unveiling the fascinating life stories of both the famous and the forgotten painters, potters and sculptors of the 20th century. https://www.goldmarkart.com Goldmark Front Room Musical events are also regularly hosted in Goldmark Front Room, which can seat 60 guests featuring the likes of Sam Lee and L.Y.R. (Simon Armitage).    / @goldmarkfrontroom   #pottery EXHIBITION 10.7.26 - 14.8.26