SOPHIE MANESSIEZ

Flagship of Fragility

$2,600.00
Exhibition Submission Statement
Porcelain came to me first through touch: it is soft, fluid under the hand in its raw state. There is something almost sensual in the material before firing.

But what truly drew me in, was the desire to dethrone it. Porcelain carries a heavy legacy, the great manufactures, precious dinner services, the romantic figurines of the 19th century with their shepherdesses and gallant couples. I wanted to explore it from a radically different angle, more contemporary, stripped of its utilitarian role and inherited preciousness.

What also fascinates me is its memory. Porcelain captures and holds the finest details within its tight, dense grain, a lace imprint, a gesture, a texture. It keeps everything.

And then there is the fundamental paradox: once fired, porcelain reaches 6 to 7 on the Mohs scale, comparable to hardened steel. It is hard. And yet it is fragile. That contradiction is at the heart of my practice.

In my woven works, I wanted to push this paradox as far as it would go: by linking hundreds of small, fragile porcelain elements through a thread system, I give them back a form of suppleness and fluidity, what they had in their raw state and what firing takes away. And paradoxically, this assembly of fragilities becomes a robust structure.

This is where the real question emerges for me: is fragility truly a flaw? In our society, the fragility of a living being is often perceived negatively. But my woven works show me otherwise: fragility, put into relation, can become a force. A collective force.

Dimensions: 19.7"H x 15.6"W

Material: Porcelain, thread

Artwork ships: June 22, 2026 (when exhibition closes)

Flagship of Fragility

Sophie Manessiez, 2025
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Artist Statement

I work with porcelain as a sensitive structure, exploring what connects, supports, and traverses, and what makes a whole possible beyond its apparent fragility.

From individually shaped elements, I construct composed works grounded in tension, balance, and the precision of the link. Repetition and subtle variation in forms and lines bring forth singularities within seemingly homogeneous ensembles, where each unit retains its presence while contributing to an overall structure.

My work questions how living systems and human connections—familial, social, environmental, or intimate—are formed, weakened, and sustained nonetheless. Relationships become constitutive of form, giving rise to sensitive architectures made of links, memory, and controlled fragility.

Porcelain, the central material of my practice, is sometimes placed in dialogue with stoneware, introducing a tension between delicacy and resistance. My works engage the wall and space as territories of relation, where balance is perceived in the in-between, through the accuracy of gesture and the strength of the link.

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About the Artist

Sophie Manessiez is a ceramic artist whose practice revolves around porcelain as a sensitive structure. Her work explores the tensions between fragility and resistance, singularity and collective form, in a research where material becomes a space of relation, memory, and presence.

After a background in visual arts, communication, and several years in the event industry, she has been fully dedicated to ceramics since 2007. Trained in ceramic fine craft techniques in Montreal, she has developed a sculptural language grounded in repetition, variation, and the precision of gesture. Each element is individually shaped, allowing subtle differences to emerge through the hand, rhythm, and time.

Her work takes the form of wall-based and sculptural compositions in which units interact, creating sensitive structures that are both delicate and rigorous. Porcelain, sometimes brought into dialogue with stoneware, enables her to explore a subtle balance between refinement and tension, apparent lightness and structural strength. Through her work, Sophie Manessiez investigates visible and invisible connections that shape living systems and human relationships. Her pieces evoke sensitive cartographies made of memory, interconnection, and controlled fragility, inviting the viewer to slow down, move, and inhabit space differently.

Based in Canada, she develops a practice rooted in the long temporality of material and in a transatlantic presence between Europe and North America.

Artist cv

SOPHIE MANESSIEZ

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