Ceramics artist Naomi Gilon: 'I love working with hands'

Every week, our radar detects another artist who deserves your full attention. Today, it is the creator and ceramicist Naomi Gilon, who transforms everyday objects to reveal the monsters that grip them in their claws.

“When you meet someone in the street, you form an idea of them very quickly, but there is a whole other story behind them. It is the same with objects. Beneath their surface and their smooth shape, they have plenty of stories to tell.” In order to tell those stories, Naomi Gilon creates strange chimeric objects in ceramic. They are often objects that we come across in everyday life: handbags, shoes, candle holders, or cups, combined with monstrous clawed appendages.

All you ever see of the monster is its hands, like the one opening the door to the basement or sliding open the lid of a coffin. “I love working with hands. It is the part of the body that manipulates things and comes into contact with objects. There are also tendons and joints that allow me to suggest tension and force.”

These colourful objects with their pop-looking deformities could be read as a critique of fast fashion and consumerism, but just as she only reveals part of her monsters, she gives nothing away about what she sees in the objects. “I am not really engaged in a critique. I prefer to highlight elements with which people can construct their own stories. I have met people who have seen things in my pieces that I had never thought of, and I think that's wonderful.”

Furry fear
Before making ceramic objects, Naomi Gilon made a name for herself transforming car body parts, which she covered with fur and other materials. “I was fascinated by the world of cars, by the design and the shapes of the bodywork, the shiny surfaces and the reflections.” It was those same formal qualities that drew her to ceramics. She is self-taught. “I studied painting at La Cambre and made a few ceramic pieces. My studio was located above a ceramic shop, so I began to develop my interest in more depth. Through it, I discovered how to work with density and colour. Another thing I love about ceramics is their ambiguous quality. The forms are stable and seem solid, but they are fragile at the same time: they can be scratched or break.”

During the lockdown, Naomi Gilon was approached by the graphic artists Loan Bottex and Antoine Elsensohn. Together, they came up with an idea for a book: La Femme en fourrure. “It enabled me to carry out a kind of archiving and take stock of everything I have done up until now, before embarking on other projects.”

Alongside her work in galleries, Naomi Gilon has also opened an online shop in which she sells everyday functional objects and original pieces for totally affordable prices. “When I was studying art and we would go to a gallery, I realised that if you didn't have money, you would have to make do with just looking. With this online shop, anyone can treat themselves to a unique piece without needing to visit a gallery.”

NAOMI GILON
La Femme en fourrure (book): 64 p., €19, www.naomigilon.com
Trolling the Sneaky Kingdom (exhibition): 10/12 > 10/1, Normaal Gallery, Instagram