sans titre

Setsuko Nagasawa (Kyoto, Japan, 1941)
Collection : Fonds d'art contemporain de la Ville de Genève (FMAC)

Mainly a ceramic artist, but also a sculptor, Setsuko Nagasawa enriches her terracotta practice by her deep knowledge of Japanese traditional arts. She is attentive to the geometry of volumes and shapes, creating works with clean lines whose textures are sometimes brought to life by smoke effects. In order to decorate the new columbarium at Saint-Georges cemetery (inaugurated in 1987), the Japanese artist devised a plan for a monumental wall representing the continuous stream of life. Washed with iron oxide, the work offers a blend of mineral and aquatic hues, unfolding through a set of colored undulations symbolizing the movement of the living and the flow of a river, on which each eddy rises and disappears in order to rise and disappear again, in the infinite play of a perpetual recommencement. Ornamented by various ceramic diamonds made of enameled stoneware with green, blue and brown tones, the building, which conserves funeral urns, elegantly and naturally integrates into its verdant park environment, in harmony with the surrounding space.
Article commissioned by P3
Notice: Séverine Fromaigeat, translation: Matthew Cunningham