I. INTRO
II . THE EMERGENCE OF THE STUDIO
III . THE ABUNDANCE SERIES
IV . PORTAL, MEDIUM, OBJECT: CLAY, VOID, THE FERTILE SPACE.
V . SPATIAL RESONANCE
Marie-Laure Davy is a self-taught ceramicist and designer, originally from a remote, mountainous countryside in France. She practiced dance and model drawing alongside a career in advertising in New York for more than 10 years, before turning to ceramics through a year-long intensive program at Arco in Lisbon, Portugal, after relocating.
Her process and forms emerge from a continuous practice of meditation, being immersed in the ocean and forest, and writing, rather than from visual references. Alongside this practice lives a curiosity about different materials and how they interact with clay to shift the atmosphere of a room.
Light and sculptural form act as mediums, giving an empty space presence and possibility.
The studio’s very first collection was composed of a series of stoneware and porcelain sculptural vessels - Despite the static nature of a table top piece, the notions of light, rythm, and the relationship to space were already present in this first collection.
The main references for this first body of work already shared an underlying sense of intimacy and a focus on the female body. These included the work of fashion photographer Erik Madigan Heck, particularly his approach to light and posture, as well as the flower paintings of Georgia O’Keeffe, particularly her approach to form and abstraction.
Blue porcelain waves served as an anchor from which movement departed. Iterations introduced a sense of pace. Round hollows and elongated necklines stretching into the air nodded to the feminine and the spiritual.
From vessels, the studio moved towards wall pieces, combining ceramics with other materials to create layered shapes with a strong and expansive presence.
The Abundance sculpture was the first manifestation of the studio’s venture onto the wall and originated from a commission for a friend’s house in France, giving ML-D full freedom to let the concept emerge through meditation, movement and writing, in parallel with exploring through trial and error and researching wood artisans who shared a like-minded sensitivity to materials and their sensoriality.
The dialogue between ceramic and wood is essential to the piece. The movement of the form is held by its base, grounding its expressive energy and giving it an intemporal quality.
With the genesis of this series, a sculptural language of depth and abundance was born.
Studio Ēeme’s creative process is, to this day, still informed by this first journey through the creation of the Abundance series. The discipline established around meditation, dance, hiking, and writing continues to bring a deeper understanding of the role of clay and the hands that shape it, as well as the meaning of spatial resonance.
At the core of this practice is an expanded approach of fertility, not as a fixed biological condition but as a way of thinking about emergence, potential, and the conditions through which sculptural forms come to life.
Hollow centers, folded surfaces, upward gestures, and the movement of light across material are used to explore latency, growth, and interior change.
Clay remains central to the studio’s journey - not only as a medium, but as a point of connection between gesture and sculptural forms, between the physical and the affective, the ancestral and the present.
Across the practice, objects are conceived in close relation to architecture and to the emotional register of space. Rather than operating as autonomous forms, they ask how an object can alter perception, pace, and atmosphere through its material presence, its scale, and its relation to light and shadow.
A line or graphic shape can create rhythm . A shadow can soften a wall . A curve can introduce movement . A suspended form can change how a space breathes
