Anne-Laure Cano

b. 1979, France

“Cano’s work is direct and confrontational. Upon first sight, the jagged forms and conglomerate colours of the Ussade Series are challenging to interpret. Closer inspection reveals how each piece is constructed by a patchwork of beautifully glazed landscapes, a strikingly unique sense of colour, and an impressive ability to resolve materials into counterpoint whilst resisting the facile and the cloying. Cano harnesses vocabularies of architecture and sculpture in the service of robust, innovative, and emotionally intelligent ceramic works.” – Ashley Thorpe, author of Contemporary British Ceramics: Beneath the Surface and Contemporary British Studio Pottery: Forms of Expression.

Anne-Laure Cano’s practice is led by material, process and meaning. She examines the properties of clay through a process of breaking and reassembling her own pieces; twisting, pulling and mixing various clays together with eclectic components. Cano’s work explores how ceramics can echo the human condition, how we respond to the passing of time, memories and sense of belonging.

In her recent work, Cano explores themes of limitations and adaptation. Loosely inspired by her experience as a foreigner, this new series explores moments of transition - how we adapt to new situations and constantly reinvent ourselves. Cano reuses old pieces in new work, creating a constant movement of destruction and regeneration. This lifecycle reflects on identity, transformation, and finding a new balance. The lines of stress, cracks and distortion of the pieces result from pushing the material to its limits, as well as the unanticipated results from firings. This illustrates humanity’s duality between fragility and resilience.

Anne-Laure Cano was born in France and studied ceramics in London where she graduated from City Lit College. Before studying ceramics, she gained an MA in Cultural Studies at Michel de Montaigne University, Bordeaux – France. She recently moved to Barcelona.

Cano was announced as the Overall Winner of the Young Masters Maylis Grand Ceramics Prize 2023 in London where her work was exhibited at Gallery 67 in Marylebone. She has also shown her work at COLLECT in 2023 at Somerset House in London where she was shortlisted for the acclaimed Brookfield Art Properties Craft Award. That year she was also selected to show her work at the Design Museum in Barcelona as part of the Best Design of the Year exhibition.

In 2021 Cano won the CERCO International Ceramics biennale award in Zaragoza, Spain leading to her first solo show in 2022: Ussade-The longing to Belong at the Asociación de Artesanos de Aragón as part of the International Ceramics Fair in Zaragoza. That same year she won the Pujol and Bausis Ceramics Prize at the Angelina Alos International Ceramics biennale in Esplugues de Llobregat, Barcelona.

In December 2020 she took on an art residency at the Porthmeor Studios in Saint Ives, UK with the collective of artists Eutectic as part of the Bernard Leach and Shoji Hamada pottery centenary celebrations.

Cano’s work has featured in publications including; The Gloopy, the Bulky and the Ugly - and you thought ceramics were delicate’, Victoria Woodcock, Financial Times (2023); ‘Anne-Laure Cano: Ussade’, essay by Ashley Thorpe, Ceramics Now (2022); ‘One Year In’, Paul Bailey, Emerging Potters Magazine (2019).

Cano’s work is held in institutional collections including: Asociación de Artesanos de Aragón-Permanent collection-Zaragoza-Spain, Can Tinturé Ceramics Museum – Permanent collection – Barcelona – Spain, and private collections worldwide.

In 2023 Cano began a collaboration with the Rajoletta Museum, a former ceramics factory in Barcelona to create a new body of work in response to their archive and collection. This will result in a two-person exhibition alongside artist Jim Gladwin that will open at the end of 2024.

Anne-Laure Cano was the winner of the Young Masters Maylis Grand Ceramics Prize 2023.

Collect 2024 | Anne-Laure Cano