Frédéric Mulatier

Curriculum Vitae

Frédéric Mulatier is living and working in the Ardèche (France).
He began as a traditional basket weaver, trained at the National School of Basketry.
In France, there are only 200 officially recognized basket weavers — and he is one of them.
He later shifted to artistic ceramics, forging a dialogue between wicker and clay.

He exhibited in France, Belgium, England, Switzerland, and Japan, each time with work that breaks the boundary between art and craft.

Inspiration

Reversing logic, storytelling through matter

His work is inspired by a personal legend about the birth of pottery — a tale he believed fictional, but later found to be historically accurate: baskets covered in mud and exposed to fire became the first ceramic vessels.

His art pays tribute to forgotten knowledge and human ingenuity, connecting memory with future. He sculpts stories shaped by intuition and the unexpected.

Mulatier’s approach reverses roles: wicker, born from the earth, becomes clay’s protector. Weaving structures the narrative, clay adds nuance, and fire punctuates the story. Technique is a tool, not a goal. He embraces the unknown — fire decides the final outcome. Each piece is a self-contained birth, a surprise.

For the colours and nuances, he draws inspiration among others from the Chinese painter Zao Wou-Ki and from prehistoric cave paintings.

His motto: “Memory is the future of the past” – Paul Valéry.

Technique

• Materials: Wicker, clay, primitive wood-fired kiln
• Process:
  • Begins with writing and sketching
  • Selects and soaks wicker (±10 days), then weaves the structure
  • Applies slip in successive layers (sometimes to 15 layers)
  • Adds instinctive color using oxide-based engobes
  • Polishes meditatively with stones, glass or knives
  • Dries (± one week), then fires in an outdoor kiln
  • Fire acts freely: the piece becomes autonomous
  • Cleans, finishes with matte wax, and presents to the public