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ART & DÉCORATION - Décembre 2005 - N° 420
Symbols across cultures
Mingling
clay, cloth and calligraphy of Arabic and Japanese inspiration, Sylvian
Meschia’s work spans cultures.
There lives a ceramist
in the land of Occitan who can make objects talk. Dishes, caskets, tiles,
fabrics, all sculpted in glowing shades, all telling a story. Snatches
of poetry and prose are mingled with Arabic or Japanese-style calligraphy
and brought together in one free stroke. The message that emerges from
this self-styled alphabet is crystal clear. It is this mysterious fusion
of clay and craft by a man who has skilfully created and transcribed into
his own personal vocabulary his belief in peace through cultural mix.
Sylvian Meschia is a man of the Mediterranean; he was born in Algeria
and spent his first twelve years in the dazzling southern sunlight. At
school he was taught Arabic literature and learned the rudiments of calligraphy
chiselled in clay. Then there was the culture shock of arriving in France,
where, while still at school, he knew he would become a craftsman and
artist. He learnt to throw, then moved into theatre production before
settling down as a ceramist in the Volvestre region of south west France.
He first produced brightly coloured tableware, then quickly developed
his personal reworking of a traditional marbling technique on vases and
jars. By the 1990s he was looking to get back to his roots by creating
tiles and caskets where long-forgotten reminiscences of Arabic calligraphy
were beginning to appear. Gradually he has reinvented the Orient, as paintbrush
replaces bamboo and where, like some dancer bearing the katana or tabouka
(Japanese and Touareg sabres) he cuts into the fresh clay to give birth
to a new, wholly personal repertoire of signs and symbols. His work brims
with life, an ode to the fusion of cultures.
Marlène Marcos