About
Born in 1990, Cybèle B.Pilon is a French canadian artist and professionally trained ceramist based in Montréal. She graduated from Bonsecours Ceramic Center in 2017, after a Bachelor degree in Communications Sciences at University of Montréal. Since she began her professional practice, Cybèle has exhibited locally and internationally while being actively involved in her community. She is a member of the Conseil des Métiers d'art du Québec (CMAQ) and has been on the board of directors of the Centre de céramique Bonsecours since 2023.
Inspired by her French canadian cultural heritage, her pictorial language is developed by declining and altering pre-existing patterns she found in the public space, Québec’s built heritage or folk art. Her work is characterized by the use of a water etching technique to create colorful highly ornamented functional objects made with a locally produced red earthenware that contains claystone from Gaspésie (Québec).
« Although I work mainly with clay, the "decorative" remains the main raw material of my practice. I dig my inspiration in my personal material culture [white cis French-Canadian woman born in 1990], pop culture, European and North American tradition and Folk art to shape it into colorful, highly ornamented objects with sometimes, a zest of strangeness. I am interested in everything that was historically discredited on the basis of their perceived femininity and considered non-essential or superfluous in Western culture. I try to reclaim what is coded as amateur and inferior. This is one of the reasons why I like the ceramic material first and foremost and even more earthenware. This is also why I like to make utilitarian pieces and use vibrant commercial colors in my work. All these things at one time or another have been discredited and associated with the feminine.
Through so-called "decorative" art, I am interested in the narrative potential of the ordinary object, the discourses that arise from it on identity, transmission and memory. I am looking for ambiguity, the blur line between the princess and the clown. I hope to create objects that echo the complex world from which they emerge. My creations sprout from tradition, bloom in the contemporary world and are the future vestiges of the past. I like to see a mug as a sculpture or a 3 dimensional canvas. Behind its function, lies a real opportunity. For me the domestic space is a radical and powerful place to display and engage with art. »
If you want to know more about my projects and daily life, you can follow me on instagram. Also, I love seeing people using their pieces! Please tag me and show me how you use yours!
Follow me @Cybelebp
Contact me info@cybelebpilon.com
Consult selected press about me
Consult selected work