Catherine Wolf

Born in Geneva in 1961, Catherine began working as self-taught in her own workshop , to realize utilitarian pottery by turning wheel, for everyday use and she'd been doing this for about ten years.

After a 5-year professional break, dedicated to family life and children, she follows continuous workshop training at Hugues de Crousaz in Bernex in Switzerland and opens a new workshop at her home.

Matter comes from the stars and my ceramics come from my heart.

Invested and passionate, she seeks to discover ceramics in a different way.

It was then that she finally discovered the material "Earth" in its multiple languages, with its material effects and the work of texture that she explored with passion using different stoneware or chamotte porcelains.

The surface of her ceramic pieces evokes plants or animals nature, and her sensitivity to matter leads her to this well-known reflection of the philosopher Antoine Lavoisier:

«Nothing is lost, nothing is created, everything is transformed»

What’s earth, if not just broken stones? The clay and the ceramist live in the same world, but on two very different time scales.

Mountains are born out of geological action that lasted for millions of years. Clay results from the weathering of rocks, also called erosion, which is caused by the mechanical action of wind, water and even temperature.
Clay is the product of mountain erosion; it is the end result of the slow decomposition of rocks. If the surface of the Earth seems immutable to us, it is because we can only observe it for a relatively short period of time ... "the span of a human lifetime".

Throughout his/her life, the ceramist works the earth, beats it, turns it, models it, shapes it, molds or sculpts it, he dialogues with it.

It is with fire that he/she manages to accelerate the natural process of transformation of matter, and this is how the mountains which took so long to transform into clay, return to the rock under the action of heat from the potter's oven... and the cycle begins again!

«It's this journey through the time that guides and stimulates my work. But for sure, one day my pieces will return to clay ... and I to Earth!» - Catherine WOLF

Catherine WOLF now lives in the Dordogne, France, where she works in her studio, teaches and organizes internships during school periods.