Catarrazat

Catarrazat

Sculpture. Tactile memory of body and mineral.

Catarrazat (Chantal Arrazat) is a self-taught sculptor working with clay since 1985. Her first Parisian steps were taken in ceramics workshops at the Théâtre des Amandiers (Nanterre) and the Cité Universitaire, followed by art therapy work with children. In 1992, an encounter with the work of choreographers Angelin Preljocaj, Pina Bausch, and Dominique Bagouet opened a new impulse: the desire to freeze an instant in clay or bronze. A year of training at the Fonderie Clémenti (2004) extended her practice into bronze — moulding, casting, chiselling, patination.

Her series Femme galet, Femme lune, and Cirrostratus make of the body a landscape, and of deformation a vocabulary: bumps, folds, erosions become traces of a tactile memory shared with mineral matter.

Practice

Catarrazat's process is one of pressure and release — a long negotiation with matter from which form eventually emerges. She kneads, flattens, assembles, guided by the emotion of letting go. It is the bumps, the deformations that interest her: by elimination, the sensual asserts itself.

Faces in her sculptures are deliberately left indistinct — not unfinished, but open. Nothing is imposed. Each viewer is invited to take ownership of the work that has just come into being.

Her practice has been recognised internationally through numerous prizes and distinctions across Parisian and international salons.

Contact & Links

artmajeur.com/catarrazat · Carré d'Artistes · Atelier 49, 20 rue Dautancourt, Paris 17e

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