Casavells

KING HOUNDEKPINKOU

The Sea Widow: Inner Carnage 2018
Paris, 2018.
Ceramics: black stoneware from Lanzarote (Canary Islands, Spain)
Multiple glaze layers (blue, purple and white), gold lustre

Measurements
Ø 30 x 48,5cm hight
Ø 11,8 x 19,09in hight

Concept
King blends clays and other materials from all continents to create experimental works that combine craftsmanship, cross-cultural understanding and spirituality. He cultivates an attraction for the “beauty of imperfection” and purposely scratches, tears and repairs clay bodies often disfigured by texture overload. Once fired, glazes reveal cracks, grains and flux that often emulate the aesthetics of the Voodoo altars from Benin.

Biography
Born in Montreuil, France, in 1987, King Houndekpinkou is a Franco-Beninese ceramicist who works and lives in Paris.
In 2012, King’s fascination for Japan takes a new turn as he discovers the works of the Six Ancient Pottery Kilns of Japan, which include Shigaraki, Bizen and Tamba. He begins to learn ceramics in Paris and travels to Bizen, Japan, each year to acquire further experience besides fellow potters from the Keramos group. There, King was amazed by their ceremonial approach to blending earth, water, air and fire to create ceramics with a natural and crude aesthetics. For him, their practice was reminiscent of Benin’s animist traditions of Voodoo as both “sciences” search for a fused relationship between man and nature in order to guide our existence.