In the studio of… Laurent Craste | The rise of a ceramic master

A renowned ceramic sculptor, Laurent Craste is having a rather prosperous start to the year with three exhibitions in Canada and one in France. The former potter turned contemporary artist rose through the ranks thanks to a unique signature and impeccable technique. We found him in the heart of his workshop in Saint-Damien, in Lanaudière.

Eric Clement
The Press

Journey

Laurent Craste has had a unique journey. Born in France, he became a veterinarian in 1987. But he didn’t like it anymore, he wanted to become an artist. Life took him to Quebec, where he studied clay sculpture. For years, the potter has created utilitarian objects that he presented in exhibitions of crafts. “My work then evolved towards the decorative object, which became more and more symbolic and strange,” he says.

The two years of master’s degree in visual arts at UQAM gave her a new impetus. He has chosen an approach that consists in carrying out, alone, all the stages of creation, from kneading to enameling. He is known for his “vandalized” ceramics or which seem to mimic human actions. Works that sometimes evoke destruction, such as his series Diversion – which associates fatal images with stylish ceramics – or his popular corpus Abuse.

His porcelains are part of major collections: Montreal Museum of Fine Arts, Loto-Québec, City of Montreal, Art Gallery of Burlington, Majudia, Claridge, Cirque du Soleil, etc. Aged 53, Laurent Craste says he is “royally” represented by Galerie 3, in Quebec. He also works with La Guilde, in Montreal, and with the Hohmann Fine Art gallery, in California. After having taught ceramics for a long time in college, he has devoted himself fully to art since January. “I work 7 days a week, 12 hours a day, so at some point, fatigue weighs down with age! Just creating is an unparalleled joy. »

The Workshop

During the pandemic, Laurent Craste transferred his studio from the Grover building in Montreal, where he remained for 20 years, to Saint-Damien. Its new premises are larger. Near his potter’s wheel, we find his tools with poetic names: mirettes, tournassins, estèques, ébauchoirs, etc.

On a table, the artist makes his assemblies, because his works are composed of several pieces. Once the assembly is complete, he dries the work before a first firing, then proceeds to finish it by sanding, an exhausting and noisy step, which is done with a mask. Once the work is perfectly smooth, comes the stage of enamelling by vaporization, then another firing at high temperature (1200°C). For some works, Laurent Craste uses screen printing to apply an image to the porcelain, which requires a third firing. A fourth is even necessary when he adds decoration to fine gold.

Each work takes months of work. Laurent Craste destroys the object if it has the slightest defect. Often after cooking. “There are a lot of physical tensions in porcelain,” he says. You can’t control everything. Often parts split. You’ve worked on a piece for two months and you have to destroy it. So there are sometimes tragic exits from the oven. This is why few parts leave the workshop. But when they come out, they are perfect! »

A work like its emblematic iconocrast at bat, featuring a ceramic “destroying” baseball bat (a copy of which is in Stephen Bronfman’s Claridge Collection), sells in the five figures today. There are five copies. We saw a sixth in production.

His exhibitions

For this first half of 2022, Laurent Craste will have participated in four collective exhibitions. The first one, Confinedis on view at the Canadian Clay and Glass Gallery in Waterloo, Ontario, through May 8. Earth Oracles, curated by ceramist Lindsay Montgomery, takes place at the Maytens Gallery in Toronto until May 7. It will be part, from May 14 to June 4, of the exhibition Infinitely blackpresented in the gallery of Yves Louis-Seize, his neighbor and former teacher, in Saint-Gabriel.

He participates, since March 19 and until May 29, in the exhibition Novalis Terra, at La Piscine – Musée d’art et d’industrie André Diligent, in Roubaix, France, a presentation of the work of three Quebec ceramists, Pascale Girardin, Amélie Proulx and himself. “I’m delighted, it’s prestigious,” he said. I exhibit six works and they even chose one of my pieces, Decorative art, made from the mold of a bust which is in the Louvre, for all their publications. It bothers me for my two other colleagues, but hey, I’m flabbergasted! »

Projects

We were able to discover a still unfinished work. A sort of vase soon pierced with steel spikes, inspired by the holy Roman martyr Sebastian. Laurent Craste also wants to get out of the three-dimensional and is currently working on the representation of objects drawn with chalk (compacted engobe powder) on a handmade ceramic tile, which gives a sort of trompe-l’oeil to the both alive and ghostly.

In 2023, he will exhibit again in France and will do a solo at Galerie 3. He is very happy to see how much contemporary ceramics are experiencing enormous enthusiasm on the international scene. With renowned artists such as Shio Kusaka, Grayson Perry or Roberto Lugo, and, in Canada, Shary Boyle, Marie-Andrée Côté, Clint Neufeld or Trevor Baird. “A market has developed, open to all kinds of practices, with sales now to Quebec collectors, so it’s extraordinary,” he says.