ARTIST’S STATEMENT

"My art reflects the importance of "Good Posture" as Art captures a moment. It reflects four important things in my life: dance, elegance, kindness and hedonism. Some of these are the criteria of the decorative art of the 17th and 18th century which have influenced my sense of aesthetics, a sense of luxury easily accessible."

PROFILE

Irène de Watteville is a tile painter and a ceramic sculptor born in the Alsace region of France. She moved to the US in 1963 and completed a four-year diploma at the Boston Museum School of Fine Arts, majoring in painting and graphic art.
In 1967 she moved to Los Angeles where her embroideries and papier maché were featured in the "Egg and the Eye Gallery" now the "Craft and Folk Museum."
In 1972 she moved to Solana Beach in the San Diego area where she started her career in ceramics with Erik Gronborg, a Danish furniture maker and ceramist.
In 1983 she became interested in tiles especially in the style of European 17th and 18th faience, also called majolica. Since 1984 she has worked with designers to create murals for patios, fountains, kitchens and bathrooms.
In 1998 she joined the board of directors of the Tile Heritage Foundation, organizing symposiums and teaching workshops for this national organization. Connecting with other contemporary clay artists is a vital part of her life.
From 1995 to 2004 she served on the Public Arts Advisory Committee of Solana Beach, establishing an art policy and overseeing six tile installations in her city. The city council rightly accuses her of wanting to tile the whole town!
In 2003 she was one of the founders of Synergy Art Foundation an organization that raised funds to help the artists whose homes and studios were destroyed in the San Diego fires.
In 2005 she started working on relief tiles and three-dimensional ceramic sculptures.