Red Vase — Kintsugi and Antique Japanese Newspaper

This red vase carries a restrained, vertical presence, almost totemic in character. Its cylindrical form, punctuated by two discreet side handles, engages with the depth of the glaze, whose warm and dark nuances catch and reflect the light across the surface.

The 24k gold Kintsugi restoration follows the fracture lines without ever concealing them. On the contrary, it reveals their tension, their path, their memory. At the heart of this recomposition, a missing area has been replaced with an inlay of an original antique Japanese newspaper fragment, depicting a geisha. Set into the material itself, this paper fragment introduces a quiet, almost narrative presence into the work.

The image emerges from within the fracture: not as a decorative insert, but as a figure of passage, survival, and reappearance. Gold binds ceramic and paper together, unifies different temporalities, and transforms the accident into composition.

The piece thus moves across several registers: the rigor of the form, the sensuality of the deep red glaze, the delicacy of the antique paper, and the precious radiance of gold. It belongs to that rare territory where restoration becomes a form of writing, and where loss opens onto an image.

With its 22 cm height, this vase may be displayed on its own, as a cabinet sculpture, or placed in dialogue with other works concerned with memory, repair, and the fragment.

A unique piece, where the fracture becomes a scene, and absence is transformed into apparition.