Martine Rey

Martine Rey is a lacquer artist and specialist in urushi, a Japanese lacquer made from the sap of the urushi tree. A former student of École des Arts Appliqués in Paris, she discovered and learned urushi techniques at Kyoto University of the Arts. Since then, she has worked with urushi for the intensity and depth of its blacks, for its surface that invites touch, and for its capacity to give precious status to ordinary objects and reveal the infinite beauty of each thing.

Martine Rey envisaged her residency as a return to lacquer’s country of origin. Having explored the most traditional techniques, her practice is now fiercely independent of this tradition. She seeks ways to forge new connections and territories, questioning the aesthetic emotions of Japan and France, the techniques and skills they share and/or have borrowed one from the other, to then identify an in-between space; simultaneity in a project with Japanese (mostly lacquer) artists.