Opening of Tristan Chaillot and Claire Soubrane exhibition - Station Galerie

Tristan, who was born on the shores of a lake, in Versoix near Geneva, has spent almost half a century shaping clay, almost since childhood, and even as a child enjoyed kneading the malleable earth of the water's edge.

A slightly wild childhood, with a taste for nature, where school was not her friend until she was sixteen.

Then came his encounter with Aline Favre, who, from utilitarian to sculptural, is one of the leading figures in the revival of ceramics in Switzerland. This meeting was so decisive for Tristan that she enrolled in the Beaux-Arts and then, for four years, in the ceramics section of Geneva's illustrious Ecole des Arts Décoratifs.

This was enough time to forge a trade, the chance to cross paths with a master in the field, Philippe Lambercy, fruitful teaching in theory and practice, both feet firmly planted in the reality of a ceramics workshop, and the training of a critical eye.

In 1971, she set up her own studio in La Roche-Saint-secret, Drôme provençale, France.

Tristan works with stoneware and porcelain for their high-temperature firing, for their glazes that penetrate deep into the shard, and for their solidity derived from the combination of earth and glaze.

As in Japan, he fires at 1300°C with wood, and since 1992 with gas, but always with the flame playing with the material, where even with knowledge and experience, beyond the expected results, each firing gives its share of surprises.

Tristan's ceramics are inspired by nature, influenced by the seasons, almost visceral, whose original movement, whether on the wheel or on the slab, is to pull the earth towards the sky.

Spontaneous, rapid, Tristan's hands impart an upward momentum to each of his works.

The clay palpitates between his fingers and gestures are freely sketched out until a sketch of a piece emerges and enchants, then it's just a matter of working on it, deforming it, and working on it again, until it's complete.