Les Maitres et Elèves par ordre alphabétique
Jean GIREL
Ceramic artist
Craft National Living Treasures 2000
Jean Girel’s research resulted in the rediscovery of some ancestral ceramic techniques who had been forgotten. Thus, the art craftsman is able to make porcelain pastes that can be turned, moulded or enamelled, always privileging transparency, the turning, the work on the material or the resistance to firing : most of these qualities had disappeared when the casting technique appeared around 1880, and when the plastic kaolin quarries became exhausted around 1930.
Jean Girel decided to go back to the old Chinese techniques, and to the use of materials from the new technology (neoceramics, glues...), and therefore succeeded in the making of such an exploit.This craftsman of genius is responsible for other clever discoveries, such as the “oriental” porcelain turning, sticking to the very shape of the porcelain as much as possible, or the original conception of glazes made of materials of different quality levels (crushed stones, rare clays, industrial colouring agents...).
As he uses innovating technologies, the ceramist adopts a definitely modern approach in his work. That’s where all the beauty of Jean Girel’s art works lies, works that evoke a modern aspect : “the understanding and the translation of the world through material, energy, space and time”, and a timeless aspect which is governed by the result : “the immemorial aspect of the ceramic, the refusal of fashion and of the ego cult”.
