Originally from Brittany, JOËNNE is an autodidact and has a passion for transforming human figures into volumes. To do this, she has chosen the technique of modelling and produces pieces in small and medium-sized formats... No firing is needed thanks to an air drying clay, which she paints in bright, pure colours... and her sculptures take on the appearance of small, well-made ceramics. JOËNNE lets herself be guided by her creative instinct, and enjoys shaping characters that are taken straight from a fantastical imaginary world brimming with inventiveness. Expressive, novel and wondrous all at once, this extraordinary world springs directly from the child inside of her, whom she delights in keeping alive. Expressed in a great formal simplicity, her creations are deeply marked by this desire for spontaneity that Naive Art has propounded since the time of Henri Rousseau. It is not a question, for example, in these figurative sculptures, of respecting proportions or imitating nature. However, the meticulousness of certain details reveals a quest for artistic effects, despite a deliberate schematisation and stylisation that allow the artist to symbolically codify the subject. JOËNNE consequently presents endearing artworks full of expressive freshness. They embody a form of refound innocence in a visual convention that the artist has pared down and made very much her own.

Francine BUNEL-MALRAS, Art Historian

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