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InspirationArt & Culture

Abuse: Artist gets violent with porcelain to create beaten, contemporary sculptures

If you've ever felt the sheer frustration of not being satisfied with one of your artworks, then this somewhat violent series by award-winning ceramicist Laurent Craste will appeal.

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White porcelain teapot with lid and matching cup, the teapot's body wrapped with textured fabric and marked with brown stains and deliberate damage

Entitled Abuse, the range of vases, jars and plates are classical in their inspiration but with a twist – each piece seems to meet a torturous end. With axes, baseball bats, driven nails and heavy-booted feet destroying each form, the Montreal-based artist takes porcelain sculpture to a whole new level.

As described by art critique Pascale Beaudet: "The series of distorted vases actualises the rage expressed in an earlier video depicting the artist in the process of digging. It also updates the strain inherent in any production requiring great skill: the portion of rejects brought to their ultimate point.

"A deliberately caused 'accident' changes the appearance of the vases: soiled, covered with graffiti, trampled, cracked, nailed to the wall, subjected to the worst treatment, yet remaining recognisable. This violence is specifically that of the creator, since the absolute negation of the piece, smashing it to pieces, has not been implemented."

Discover more of his fascinating work at www.laurentcraste.com.

All images courtesy of Laurent Craste

White porcelain vase with classical decorative details pierced through by a dark burgundy metal spike, from Laurent Craste's Abuse series
Bronze-coloured porcelain vase with curved spouts and scrolled handles, deliberately distorted and beaten as part of Laurent Craste's Abuse series
White porcelain vase damaged with a black axe driven through it and a red bird perched on top, from Laurent Craste's Abuse series
White porcelain vase with classical form and wooden-handled tool resting across its rim, part of Laurent Craste's Abuse series
White porcelain urn with classical form and handles, deliberately damaged with a dark nail driven through its face
White porcelain neoclassical urn with curved handles and relief decoration, struck through the body by a wooden-handled axe with a red metal blade
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