Adrien is a sculptor and artist based in Seattle. He studied ceramics in the California College of Arts. He’s a very talented and creative person and in our opinion, he’s a real pro in making pottery with super realistic faces. He says there’s no secret meaning behind these faces, he just likes doing this. Adrien says it’s not his job to add meaning to his projects, every person will find their own meaning in it.
The only thing that’s intentional is the facial expressions, he doesn’t get angry ones or anything like that. Adrien wants the facial expressions to be calming and sort of serene so that they can hopefully bring the feeling of calm, quiet and serenity into the life of people who buy his works. He just likes the idea of integrating art into daily life, and since eating and drinking is a daily ritual for all of us it only made sense to integrate art into cups and plates.
So how does Adrien make these wonderful plates? Well, it’s actually a pretty straightforward process. It begins with a potter wheel, like any other potter would when making a piece of pottery.
He makes a plate or a cup, or a bowl, whatever he feels like that day. And then once it’s mostly done, Adrien starts sculpting out faces by hand. In some cases he uses faces of people he knows, in others, it’s just faces with particular facial expressions.
Once he’s happy with the shape he uses tools to add more details to faces, to make deeper and more precise lines, to bring out the features more clearly. After that he just bisque fires the plates and covers them in glaze.
Sometimes he’ll make plates that are just white, sometimes he’ll pick a color or two. When the inspiration strikes Adrien will make multicolored pieces. It’s all about how he feels in the moment and what he wants to do with a particular piece of art.
We’d also like to point out that while we focused on his pottery, Adrien also makes sculptures out of glass and he does create actual sculptures, not just plates. In his free time, he also enjoys yoga and skateboarding. He’s a pretty fascinating person actually and it looks like he’s not one to limit himself to just one thing. He likes to explore and try out new things and experience life in many ways. If you want to check out more of his work definitely check out his Instagram.