Kathy Le Vavasseur

Born near the banks of the Mekong River in Vietnam, Kathy Le Vavasseur now lives and works in Paris. Her protean work has been marked by her triple culture – French, Italian and Vietnamese – and invokes the question of identity through sculpture, weaving and installations. A graduate of the École Supérieure d’Art Textile Françoise Conte in Paris, she was trained by master ceramists and glassmakers. Clay is her preferred material.

Using the symbolism of fluidity, her work diverts techniques and materials from their primary function, intertwining, deforming and superimposing elements, and playing on relationships between form, material and scale. Shapes break and curve, creating light, elongated structures.

Working from form to subject and from subject to series, she gives movement to clay at the point of contact between air and water, using the nerikomi technique to create layers and playing on the paradox between a fluid form and a dense yet fragile base.

Her minimalist, organic works tend to avoid any ordinary expression of the body. In such installations as “Translocation,” “Orogeny,” “Neuron” and “Genesis,” the human is evoked through symbols borrowed from science. Since 2003, she has participated in some 30 exhibitions.

Visit Kathy Le Vavasseur’s website and Instagram page.