Pliny's Sorrow

Johan Creten is considered one of the precursors – with Thomas Schütte and Lucio Fontana - in introducing ceramics in contemporary art. Fascinated by its beauty, its symbolic impact and the richness of its history, the artist explores the medium through multiple techniques and scales. His painting training brings another dimension to his sculpture work, giving the glaze and its colors a main role in the artworks. Deeply influenced by the environment and its effects on the impressions of his works, Johan Creten's work ranges widely, from delicate clay sculptures to large-scale bronzes, a medium he introduced in his work more recently. Inventing phantasmagoric and organic creatures and forms and creating his own fantasy world through them, Johan Creten's œuvre reveals the artist own engagements and raises existential questions such as the ambiguity of sexuality in the human race and the unpredictable strength of nature among others.