Valentine Benoist
Ever since I was a child, treasures picked on the shores of the Côtes-d'Armor have weighed down my pockets. Grains of sand accumulate in my coat and jackets, forgotten shells resurface months later in the back pocket of jeans, and granite stones lie around everywhere.
Today, this personal collection feeds into a narrative and a sensitive ceramic practice. My career, initially rooted in journalism and publishing in London, was built on observing chefs, producers, artisans and designers. This attentiveness continues to inform my relationship with the material: a focus on stories and gestures.
Based between Brittany and East London, I work with stoneware, often incorporating materials foraged from the Breton coastline: wild clays, fragments of granite, sand, sea debris, ashes made from local seaweeds, plants and woods... These elements, collected in situ, anchor each piece in a place and a time.
My gestures are thoughtful, slow, sometimes carried out in direct contact with the landscape. The materials gathered on the coast are not decorative: they determine the form, the surface and the firing. Each piece archives the memory of a specific territory, shaped by the sea.
projects
The Memory of Stones
What remains
Chaos
Gems
Shells
research
Photo credit: Liz Seabrook