Karima Duchamp: Golden Rock

Karima Duchamp: Golden Rock, 2017-2019

In the Golden Rocks sculpture corpus, Karima Duchamp uses cut-out, fragmented slabs of clay, stoneware or porcelain, that are erected in volume like crumpled origami sheets. As Karima Duchamp mainly works on geometrical shapes, she uses the triangle as a basis of construction. The sculptures seem crystallized, they are like artifacts or fossils of a story, witnessing a moment and calling for nostalgia. Prematurely aged surfaces, these structures remain open in the upper part and leave the possibility to explore their interior. The surfaces are whitewashed with engobe, as with lime, the reliefs are thus revealed. On the outer surfaces, the engobes blue, white and black offer a dullness that contrast with the use of gold, both material and light, symbol, it is the thread of the story. The motifs spread on the surfaces and come to embrace the anatomy of the sculpture, remodel and magnify it. Golden lines are lines of tension that allow the form to not be defragmented ; the gold vein infuses a presence, the light of different golds, both material and symbol. The mixing of drawings and ceramics is really intertwined in her artistic position.