It was January 2020. While exhibiting a few watercolours at a friend’s studio in Paris, Julie Télot worked with clay for the first time. Chinese calligraphy had taught her discipline; drawing had trained her to let herself go. Ceramics brought the two together in a meditative artistic experience.
There is a creative force in Julie; she draws her energy from a thousand perspectives, a thousand contrasts. That energy sought to express itself when the Wakashio sank off of a beach that she loves with all her heart.
“Each blackened mangrove called for another to be created in space, out of matter, in spirit.”
Creating is the only instance in which you have to dispossess yourself to enrich yourself, according to Malcom De Chazal. Julie could not agree more. Her connection to nature is therapeutic. And from it has arisen a collection of single flower vases inspired by our mangroves, another featuring endemic birds – the pink pigeon, bulbul, dodo and cardinal – and a series of sculptures that reflect her state of mind.
“It’s about being anchored and free at the same time. It’s everything I aspire to.”
Nubia is born – a wistful ode to the beauty of Mauritius.
