Dewar & Gicquel: Fishing, Sculpture, and Ceramic Experiments

The Franco-British duo Daniel Dewar and Grégory Gicquel, born 1976 and 1975 respectively, work from a rural studio in Seine-et-Marne, France. Their practice spans performance, handcrafted copies of consumer objects, direct carving in diverse materials, and land art. A key theme is fishing, which inspires sculptures like Waders (2010), a monumental stone pair of waders, and earlier enlarged ceramic reels (2006) and steel-and-wool nymphs (2005). In 2011, they prepared for an exhibition at Galerie Loevenbruck in Paris (September 9–October 15) featuring transformed ceramics produced by refiring industrial earthenware (lavabos, bidets) at around 1200°C in a custom-built wood-fired kiln, resulting in fused, enameled forms resembling alien creatures or unknown mollusks. They also carve objects like a Quechua sandal (Decathlon) in oak, a pumpkin and diving fins in stone, and a canopic vase from a plane tree trunk. Their direct carving technique extends to steel and glass, and they model ephemeral clay figures in the forest, such as a portrait of DJ Carl Cox (2008) and Adobe Gang (2009), documented via stop-motion. The duo's approach is hands-on, learning techniques through trial and error to prioritize plasticity over perfection. A fishing outing on May 1, 2011, with critic Richard Leydier yielded catches: Dewar caught a 74 cm pike and two perches; Gicquel a 68 cm zander and a 38 cm pike; Leydier a 40 cm chub and a 35 cm black bass.