Pair of Sculptural Cobalt Blue Glazed Ceramic Wall Sconces by Olivia Cognet

A striking pair of contemporary wall sconces by French ceramic artist Olivia Cognet, executed in richly glazed ceramic with a deep cobalt blue finish. Boldly architectural and highly sculptural, the composition combines geometric volumes, curved forms, and biomorphic details into a distinctive totemic silhouette. The glossy glaze enhances the depth of the cobalt surface, creating dramatic reflections and emphasizing the interplay of light and shadow across the relief.

Handcrafted in France, each sconce functions equally as a source of ambient illumination and as a wall-mounted ceramic sculpture. The design reflects Cognet's ongoing exploration of architecture, modernist abstraction, and the expressive potential of clay, resulting in works that blur the boundaries between art, design, and functional objects.

The pair is signed by the artist and showcases the subtle variations inherent to hand-built ceramics.

Since moving to Los Angeles in 2016, French artist and designer Olivia Cognet has focused on ceramics as the fertile medium through which she expresses her boundless creativity. With the freedom this material affords to explore every type of shape and size, she creates monumental bas-reliefs and giant totems as well as chairs, tables, lamps and vases. These unique pieces, handmade by the artist in her studio, all share the same high aesthetic, abstract and graphic standards. She draws inspiration from the lights and shadows of the landscapes of California, its modernist architecture and intense nature. Infusing a modern take on the great tradition of decorative arts, her works are both functional and powerfully evocative. Olivia Cognet grew up in Nice on the Côte d'Azur, studied at the Villa Arson and was nourished by the brilliant masters from the school of Vallauris, from Picasso to Roger Capron; for her, ceramics are a key element of architecture. She starts by exploring ideas on paper, before moving to stoneware, using a local clay that comes in three natural shades. Her designs showcase the power of contrasts; her minimal, geometric lines are interwoven with a sensual and organic vocabulary. The austere aesthetic of rough clay is heightened by the elegance of the crackle glazes, which generate singular effects. Elsewhere, ethereal excrescences defy the laws of gravity. Day after day, guided by her intuition, Olivia Cognet reinvents the poetic experience of creation, fashioning work through the purity of the material. This is the magic of the artisan, combined with the promise of vibrant beauty, to enhance everyday life. Olivia is now back in France working in the former workshop of the French ceramic master Roger Capron.