Cuts, imperfections and accidents: Artist Pierre Guignard likes to “leave traces of the process visible”

The China-based sculptor and artist Pierre Guignard started on paper and canvas, but over time has expanded more and more into wood, clay and ceramics. Of what? Well, it seems to be just about anything. Some of his sculptures take shape as houses and structures, others are figurative like the small schematic forms seen in Neolithic times, where hips, bellies and limbs are exaggerated and round. In this way, Pierre’s work also takes on a child-like abandon, with crude ‘ignorant-style’ drawings making out complexions, faces and the patterns of clothing, mirroring the naive stylings of Basquiat. Using found materials such as scraps of wood, old paper, cardboard, fabric and wire, and combining them together with colouring done with oil sticks and acrylic paints, Pierre explains that he likes “to leave traces of the process visible – the cuts, imperfections and accidents”.

Leaving room for spontaneity and unexpected results, Pierre nods to ordinary things like the mundanity of a child’s drawing stuck to their parent’s fridge. There’s an immediate familiarity, which is reflected in Pierre’s process. He creates “collage portraits of strangers” that he spots on his way to his studio in Chengdu in China – he also pulls from personal memories, but he “rarely tries to tell the story directly”.

“Playfulness is something I always look for in my work. I like making things that have a slightly naive or strange side to them, and I hope they can make people smile or reconnect with something instinctive,” says Pierre, who takes inspiration from Gaston Chaissac, an artist who grew up in Pierre’s area and whose ‘modern rustic’ style of raw colours and simple forms has influenced his own. Baring resemblance to outsider art through forms of folk objects and reappropriated materials, Pierre’s work looks like it was unearthed from an ancient childhood, or plucked straight from your very own.