GRAND BAOBAB | Sculptural Ceramic

This sculpture belongs to Sandrine Herlin's Baobabs collection, born from childhood memories of Guinea-Conakry, where the baobab is the national emblem and where the artist spent part of her early years. Trained as an illustrator before turning to ceramics, Herlin builds each tree by coil and slab, techniques she keeps deliberately spontaneous so that an assumed unevenness and a living quality remain visible in the clay.

A dense crown of slender white stoneware branches fans outward from a single ringed collar, each tip capped with a small cone of porcelain or terracotta-toned glaze, an echo of the baobab's flowers and fruit. Below the collar, the tapering trunk carries the marks of its own construction: horizontal ridges recalling growth bands, small incised motifs, and, toward the base, a scatter of raised ring-shaped impressions in the unglazed clay evoking bark and old scars. 

Materials: Stoneware, glazed earthenware, porcelain, gold leaf. 
Colours and finishes: Raw white/cream stoneware with porcelain and gilded accents
Height (cm): H 136
Weight (kg): 11