KAREN SWAMI : CERAMICS IN MOTION
(english edition)

As an ESCP-EAP business school graduate, Karen Swami has led a career that has taken her from the world of finance to film production, yet never without a potter’s wheel at hand. Her passion for clay began at the age of 5 and never stopped. In parallel to her studies, she gained a certificate of professional competence. Increasingly larger pieces slowly invaded her space and her time, seducing art collectors and propelling her forward into the world of ceramic art.
To touch, to throw, to smooth, to incise, to encrust, each step requires a movement. In the firing processes, oxidation-reduction reactions play their role, altering glazes and nuancing colours of pots and jars. It has become clear to Karen Swami that the same way her work needs oxygen, she needs her work, a way of breathing, an asceticism she welcomes. At one with the clay, she leaves behind an irrefutable trace.
Along with a portrait of the artist by Laurence de Charette and the gaze of art historian Olivier Gabet, this richly illustrated book features her chamotte sandstone, «smoky» and «bare» clays, «kintzugi», cobalt blue, red enamel, eladon-green or even «galuchats», colours and shapes reminiscent of ancient dynasties that have made their way into her work.