ABOUT OLIVIA COGNEt

From Nice to Paris, via Los Angeles where she lived for several years before settling in Vallauris the city of clay French sculptor and designer Olivia Cognet has forged a creative path free from all geographical and formal boundaries.

Driven by a free spirit and a deep passion for sculpture and architecture modern and organic above all Olivia Cognet relentlessly explores all scales and typologies, far from convention. With her, every architectural element becomes a support for a rich and fertile imagination. A swimming pool, a fireplace, a fountain, a fire pit, a sofa are transformed into fully fledged works of art: sculptural and sometimes monumental, yet always sensual, functional, and poetic.

In her hands, and in those of her team of expert artisans, materials constantly take on new dimensions and expressions. She transforms ceramics with the utmost care, paying particular attention to the subtlety of glazes, and approaches stone, marble, lava, metal, plaster, and wood with the same passion.

Her masters are Constantin Brancusi and Isamu Noguchi; in architecture, Jacques Couëlle, creator of landscape-houses unique in their kind, and Gio Ponti, whose transversal approach to design and architecture she deeply admires. In Vallauris, she works daily, inspired by the creative energy of Picasso and Roger Capron, whose former studio she has taken over and transformed into her showroom. Nourished by a constant exploration of craftsmanship, Olivia Cognet moves freely from sculptural objects to mural environments, continually pushing technical and formal boundaries.

Inspired by Le Corbusier’s concept of the synthesis of the arts* and by the philosophy of Lucio Fontana and his “Spatial Concept,” she weaves an invisible thread between her creations, creating an uninterrupted dialogue within space.

With her, a wall is read as a surface to be sculpted, painted, or modeled. Art and architecture merge into a single language, driven by an irrepressible desire: to poetize life and the everyday.                  

                                   Marion Vignal

*“There are no sculptors alone, no painters alone, no architects alone. The plastic event is accomplished in a ‘single form,’ in the service of poetry,” Le Corbusier"