Juliette Clovis’ Porcelain Women Embody Elements of Myth, Nature

French ceramicist Juliette Clovis creates beautifully strange sculptures of women that blend elements of myth, nature, and feminine form. Placing special emphasis on technique and aesthetics, the artist applies cut Limoges porcelain to simple female busts, transforming them into mesmerizing new species that draw from various wildlife and flora. Through the process of mutation, these hybrid creatures become vehicles for exploring feminine identity in relation to the natural world.

Exquisite and surreal, Clovis’ women appear to be overtaken by unrelenting forces of nature: some are shrouded in flowers, butterflies, and flocks of birds; others carry a sense of danger with porcupine spikes, antlers and insect stingers protruding from their heads and skin. The sculptures embody an element of power that is juxtaposed with the fragility of the porcelain from which they were created.

Clovis’ biography states: “Fascinated by the wild beauty of Nature discovered during her different trips, the artist draws inspiration from it to create her human jungles and to explore the wild aspect of the human body. She questions the balance of power between Human and Nature. Conjucating ambiguity and employing metaphors, Juliette’s work wobbles between a prophetic picture announcing the birth of a new living being, human body with a half-animal half-vegetable face, and the onset of death caused by a hungry nature wanting to take back its rights.”

Born in 1978 in Poitiers, the artist currently lives and works in Bordeaux. She has exhibited in her native France as well as in China, Singapore, Switzerland, the United Kingdom and the United States. View more of her work on her Instagram.