Clément Covizzi: Animal Poetry Sublimated Through Raku

In the thriving landscape of contemporary sculpture, French artist Clément Covizzi has established himself as a singular voice. His ceramic animal sculptures, crafted using the ancestral Japanese technique of Raku, stand out for their evocative power and material intensity. Between tradition and modernity, his creations invite us to rethink our relationship with living beings and with matter itself.

Clément Covizzi in his studio

The Animal as a Universal Mirror

Since the very beginning, Covizzi has chosen the animal as the central subject of his art. Yet, far from yielding to decorative naturalism, he favors a purified, almost archetypal approach. His bears, sharks, gorillas, or felines are not realistic representations: they embody symbols, vital forces.

Each sculpture, a unique hand-crafted piece, carries within it both raw animality and a dimension of interiority. They appear at once close to us and distant, as if emerging from a collective unconscious. Covizzi does not describe the animal—he reveals its essence.

The Ancestral Technique of Raku

To bring this vision to life, the artist has chosen a demanding process: Raku, a Japanese technique developed in the 16th century in the context of the tea ceremony. Unlike conventional firings, Raku relies on a very rapid cycle: the pieces, after high-temperature firing, are removed from the kiln while still incandescent, then immersed in combustible materials (sawdust, leaves, paper). The thermal shock creates cracks, textural effects, and color contrasts, all of which are entirely unique to each work.

This technique, which depends as much on gesture as on chance, confers absolute uniqueness to every piece. No two of Covizzi’s sculptures are alike: some bear fine black veining, others coppery flashes, or zones of matte whiteness.

For Covizzi, this element of unpredictability is essential: “Raku is a lesson in humility. You prepare the form, you master the firing, but in the moment of smoking, it is the fire that decides. The material retains the memory of that instant. The animals I sculpt thus become witnesses of a transformation—almost a metamorphosis.”

Turtle sculpture by Clément Covizzi. Discover here the works of Clément Covizzi presented by Class Art Biarritz.

A Living Material

The result lends the sculptures an almost organic dimension. The cracked surfaces seem to evoke skin, bark, or a carapace. The interplay between matte and glossy areas recalls at times stone, at times metal, at times leather.

This materiality, born of fire and smoke, enters into dialogue with the animal form. The viewer perceives both the fragility of the clay and the strength of the animal represented.

Biography: A Singular Path

Born in the 1980s, Clément Covizzi grew up in close contact with nature, which profoundly shaped his artistic sensibility. From an early age, he was drawn to sculpture and ceramics, but first chose a path leading him toward design and the decorative arts.

It was during a journey to Asia, through his discovery of Japanese ceramics and the Raku technique, that he found his artistic language. Fascinated by the philosophy of wabi-sabi—an aesthetic that values imperfection, the ephemeral, and the happy accident—he decided to adapt it to his own universe: that of animal sculpture.

For over a decade, he has been developing a coherent body of work, exhibited in several galleries in France and abroad. Today, his sculptures circulate in private collections and appeal both to contemporary art enthusiasts and to lovers of ceramics.

Humpback whale, Raku sculpture by Clément Covizzi. Discover here the works of Clément Covizzi presented by Class Art Biarritz.

An Enthusiastic Critical Reception

Critics have praised the symbolic strength and material depth of his works. According to art critic Isabelle Moreau: “Covizzi’s animals seem to emerge from another time. One cannot tell whether they belong to an archaic past or to a dreamt future. They are archetypes, figures of memory.”

Some collectors see in him the heir to a lineage of animal sculptors that began with Pompon—yet with a radically contemporary language, shaped by matter and chance.

Comparisons and Lineages

While Clément Covizzi is distinguished by his use of Raku, his work also belongs to a broader history of animal sculpture. Just as François Pompon, in the early 20th century, chose to simplify forms in order to reveal their essence, Covizzi pursues a similar quest—but through the medium of matter itself.

He can also be compared to contemporary ceramicists who explore the unpredictable textures of fire, such as the Japanese artists Ryoji Koie or Masami Yamamoto. Yet where they embrace abstraction, Covizzi transposes the philosophy of Raku onto a universal iconography: that of the animal.

His work thus stands at the crossroads of several traditions: Western animal sculpture, Eastern ceramic art, and contemporary art’s embrace of unpredictability and raw materiality.

Tête à Tête, by Clément Covizzi. Discover here the works of Clément Covizzi presented by Class Art Biarritz.

Between Art and Craft

What strikes in his sculptures is also the way they blur the line between art and craft. The manual gesture, the working of clay, the smoking process all recall the work of a potter. Yet the choice of forms, their symbolic power, and their staging clearly belong to contemporary art.

Covizzi embraces this ambivalence. For him, “there is no hierarchy between art and craft. What matters is the emotion conveyed.” His sculptures thus align with a contemporary trend that restores ceramics to a central place in art, alongside artists such as Grayson Perry, Magdalene Odundo, or Johan Creten.

An Artist on the Rise

Today, Clément Covizzi exhibits in several galleries across France and Europe. His works are beginning to circulate in international fairs, and his market value is steadily increasing. The originality of his approach—combining animal sculpture and Raku—gives him a strong, recognizable identity.

Some observers already predict that his work could find a place in museum collections, so much does it engage with the great traditions of sculpture while proposing a contemporary language.

Le Rèveur, by Clément Covizzi. Discover here the works of Clément Covizzi presented by Class Art Biarritz.

Clément Covizzi’s animal sculptures are not mere decorative objects. They are encounters between animal, human, earth, and fire. Through the Raku technique, he restores to the material a living, unpredictable dimension, situating his works within an expanded sense of time.

In a world where contemporary art increasingly questions our relationship with nature, its fragility, and its impermanence, Covizzi offers a poetic and embodied path. His animals are not merely forms—they are presences.

And perhaps this is their greatest strength: to remind us that within the fragility of cracked earth and the symbolic power of the animal, something essential unfolds—our own relationship to life and the ephemeral.