Demeter Blooming
White Missi Vase, 2023
Ceramic
8 x 11 x 11"

Artist Statement

Hand-coiled and built from clay, this white ceramic vase reflects Chloë's cross-cultural background and her interest in blending Asian and Western aesthetics. Influenced in part by the Japanese philosophy of wabi-sabi, the work embraces restraint, natural irregularity, and the beauty of imperfection. The surface and form retain subtle variations that reveal the handmade process and the character of the material, the rawness of nature balanced with the uniformity of white.

This vase was Part of a series created for Altuzarra, East Hampton (Summer 2023), in collaboration with Missi Flowers. It was designed as a functional vessel that supports floral arrangements in a way that feels structured yet organic in line with Missi's brand and style.

Artist Bio

Chloë Le Pichon is a ceramic artist of French and Chinese heritage, born in London and raised primarily in Hong Kong within a French educational tradition. Her work exists at the intersection of Asian and Western sensibilities, exploring the dynamic tensions between the worked and the raw, elegant and elemental, permanent and impermanent. Grounded in close observation of the natural world, her practice reflects an ongoing cross-cultural dialogue that shapes both her life and her forms.

Working primarily with hand-coiled clay, Chloë embraces a slow, meditative process rooted in one of humanity's oldest techniques. Attentive to the material's strengths and vulnerabilities, she allows intuition and improvisation to guide each piece. Once fired to permanence, her vessels become quiet, enduring markers of time, culture, and shared humanity-objects that hold both fragility and resilience.

Chloë graduated from Swarthmore College, where she fell in love with ceramics under the guidance of Professor Syd Carpenter and teacher Doug Herren. For more than twenty years, she has maintained a dedicated studio practice, exhibiting in local juried shows and selling through galleries, design stores, and private commissions while navigating the evolving stages of life and work. Her recent collaborations include a floral project with Missi Flowers for Altuzarra. She continues to pursue intensive study-particularly in France-where traditional ceramic techniques and modern design aesthetics resonate deeply with her sensibilities and further refine her artistic language.

In addition to her studio work, Chloë has served as a technician and teaching artist with The Clay Studio's Claymobile program, and she teaches private lessons to both children and adults. Her early explorations into earthen building and sustainable architecture using clay continue to inform her material understanding and environmental awareness. For the past three plus years, she has served as Assistant and then Director of Gravers Lane Gallery, a contemporary studio craft gallery in Philadelphia. There, she deepened her engagement with the field through curating exhibitions, supporting artists, and fostering dialogue around contemporary craft-experiences that continue to nourish and expand her own artistic practice.

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