Maria de 'Luna' Rigeur's pamphlet

Maria de ‘Luna’ Rigeur Also known as Bebe ‘Red Dust’ Caron Presents An assemblage of magical objet d'art that is ‘More sparkling than crystal’

Lovingly made from earth, air, fire and water.

An hommage to Splendidior Vitro Also known as Ithell Colquhoun

'Splendidior Vitro' Ceramic tile 13cms x 13cms 2016

A brief introduction to Maria de ‘Luna’ Rigeur (Formerly known as Bêbe ‘Red Dust’ Caron, 1959 - 1972).

Ancient Scent’ has challenged me to step out of my insular world of solitary endeavor, so for this reason I have chosen to call upon the guidance of the fleetingly physical manifestation that is Maria de ‘Luna’ Rigeur, her essence being deep within my troubled soul.

Difficult and flighty, a creature born of a strange brew of exotic descent - French, Russian, Irish and Martian, our first encounter was as five year old extra terrestrials. My reality - that of a lonely misfit of a child that thought myself also to be of Martian descent.

Bêbe (as she was known in those times), stayed with me long enough to help me invent a secret language, hidden safely together in our space rocket behind the settee…but then she disappeared, later to re-emerge as a 15 year old runaway, joining Gilberts travelling circus as a "hootchie-kootchie" side show attraction as ‘girl in bottle’ and ‘girl with crocodile’.

At the tender age of 16 she went on to dance herself across London, Zurich and Munich, narrowly escaping initiation into ‘The Children of God’ cult whilst on the run from the loneliness of a place called Dingolfing in Bavaria, the horror of the slaughterhouse still to this day ringing in her ears.

Now, as ever before, Maria is a force to be reckoned with, presenting since 2010 as a catalyst for change, she is able to shift the complacency of the familiar and guide the way forward… and as luck would have it, many of her long lost friends have also manifested in the magical place of Lamorna to honour one of our own.

A reincarnation of ‘Bêbe’ perhaps?

Another fickle flight of fantasy most definitely, necessarily invented out of the chaos of catastrophe.

However you choose to view her/her work, she is an entity born of myself.

‘Vol Cave, the sanctity of home’ Ceramic 13cms x 13cms 2016

Reliquary containers 2016

Blackbird

She is golden

My blue donkey

Maria and me Ceramic 2016

‘Dancing in the phosphorus iridescence of love’ Ceramic 2016

‘Ignition’ Ancient Scent firing next to Pipers Stone field August 2016

Artist statement – My practice relates to the exploration of the emotive and instinctual, superficially naïve perhaps and sometimes dysfunctional in the traditional sense, the viewer/handler is invited to respond on an emotional as opposed to intellectual level.

Although I am outwardly immersed in colourful chaos and seemingly playful form, this freedom of expression is necessarily underpinned by formal elements of design and a level of searing introspection that is at times difficult to bear.

This ongoing enquiry, however dark, manifests in objects that reflect upon love and all that is beautiful in this World…with a not always hidden subtext of love gone wrong, experimental by nature and repressed by nurture, this dichotomy having influenced all that I have ever done. I am compelled to work mainly from memory and reflection, the majority of my time being spent in the studio environment, surrounded by chemicals, clay and kilns.

I am known to use a range of colours that are discordant and yet harmonic, gouged out infills purposefully underlaid with dense earth pigments and oxides, swathes of matt opaque interspersed with glassy pools of intense saturation. Colour, line and space merging background into object, object into background, suggestive, evocative and always open to interpretation. I strive to capture the essence of the intangible within the fabric of the tangible… obsessively so, my motive remaining constant regardless of material, method and outcome.

I also remain conscious of the fact that throughout history/prehistory pottery has carried the potential for expressive visual surface on a multitude of form, the complexity of which delves beneath transient fashion.

Linda Styles 2016