Earth, Hand and Fire
A former pastry chef, Jean-Philippe Koenig discovered bonsaï in Japan and learned bonsaïceramics and ceramicart in Australia.
In Alsace, eastern France, the Bonsaï potter specialises in working with wood ash glaze pottery. Besides being a botany lover, he enjoys creating with clay, raw material and is very inspired by Japan, constantly creative and also in a constant quest to reach authenticity and a desire for aesthetics.
He makes unique piece of stonewareceramics : handmadebonsaïpots, brightly colored shohinpot, accent pot, stonewarejapaneselantern.
He also specialized in the potter's wheel pieces : teabowls, Chawan, teapot and vase.
Each piece of pottery is handcrafted. The round pots are thrown on the wheel and tha squarepots are hand shaped from slabs.
Jean-Philippe Koenig has beean sculpting and painting dragons on his bonsaïdragonpot for more than twenty years. The mythical aniaml has become one of his signature motifs.
Passionnate about working with clay and wood ash glaze pottery, he experiments with many techniques and recipes tooffer pots with a huge variety of textures and colours , on his online shop , ceramique-koenig.com.
"I fire most of my ceramics between 24 and 30 hours, I increase the temperatures to 1280°C. Colours and textures are mainly developed during the firing and my pots are frost proof.
Each has a sense, an inspiration.It just takes a tiny special touch to innovate, to change a pot and give ti some personnality. The details make all the difference. Each realization manufactured handmade is a single part comprising its own characteristics given by the material.
I admire Japanese traditions, the simplicity of the forms of Japansese ceramics. Imperfection also gives character."
