Inspiration

“For the 40 years that I have been working with clay, I have always been fascinated by this material, so supple and sensitive to the touch. I try to restore in my pieces, finally petrified by fire, the movement and suppleness of raw clay.  My pieces invite to be touched, caressed. For some years now I have been making sculptures in two elements that intertwine like stones that have become alive or living beings coiled up in each other. Providing an emotion is at the centre of my artistic concerns. I seek to give form to tenderness, sensuality and exchange, but also to opposition and complementarity.

Nature in all its forms is my main inspiration, each piece carries within it the sensations I have felt during my walks in the forest, along the sea or while cultivating the flowers in my garden. They are like precious stones carrying a great emotion.”

In Nani's recent work, there is an almost language-like relationship between the pieces, an exchange and communication, like a kind of secret dialogue. His works celebrate nuptials where the hardness of one block hits the softness of another; marries it, presses it, caresses it or rests on it. The result is strange and yet familiar objects.
...these stones look like us. They have a skin, they are as if animated with life.
They are desiring stones.
(Michel Le Gentil)

Technique

“I pay great attention to textures and colour harmony.
I apply glazes in successive layers and fire them repeatedly until I obtain deep or glittering materials.”