Thiébaut's first solo exhibition with Messums London forms part of our focus on ceramics across all three of our gallery venues. Thiébaut began his career in 1976, training in France, Belgium and in England under Michael Cardew and Richard Batterham. Returning to France in 1981 he set up his first workshop in the Loire Valley and in 1984 built a new studio in the Vosges with a wood-fired kiln.
'Chagué's oeuvre recalls natural objects that are willed into becoming art objects – like the rocks mounted on wooden stands and placed by Chinese literati on their desks for contemplation. Chagué's particular choice of raw clay, is brought as dug from a village near the pottery town of La Bourne. At high temperature it acts temperamentally. Forms split and shapes sag. This is not a concern for Chagué, indeed he relishes the uncertainty of the ceramic process, finding uncertainty a useful provocation – in French a word that has powerful artistic associations. The clay is not purchased for its efficiency but for its tactility and materiality. He disregards conventional ceramic technology, and all his work is fiercely sculptural.' Tanya Harrod