Julie Brouant is a French artist, illustrator, and ceramicist based in Paris. She combines these two crafts to create pieces adorned with joyful and colourful designs.
She hand-paints all kinds of functional objects, through which her universe comes to life — influenced by folk art, Breton folklore, mythology, naïve art, and nature. Her work seeks to capture a handcrafted sensibility, where textures, irregularities, and the trace of the hand add to the character of an object.
All of her pieces are entirely shaped and decorated by hand. She works with smooth white earthenware and coloured slips. Once decorated, the pieces are fired for the first time at 1000 degrees in her pottery kiln, then glazed with a layer of transparent glaze before being fired a second time at 980 degrees. Her practice combines illustration and ceramics: drawings on paper and clay objects respond to one another, each nourishing the other. Her approach highlights the trace of gesture, an apparent simplicity, and a sensory aesthetic in which colour, decoration, and form come together.
