Myriam Greff

Myriam Greff was born in 1985. She now lives and works in Paris.

She completed a master’s degree in Heritage Restoration at the Ecole de Condé in Paris. She began her career restoring works of art for institutions and antique dealers. It was through her passion for ceramics that she discovered the “kintsugi” restoration process. This is a traditional Japanese technique whose philosophy is to repair cracks by making them more beautiful. It is based on the use of two materials: natural lacquer and pure gold.

Today, her work focuses on the union of two main techniques: kintsugi and eglomized glass. This technique dates to ancient Greece and consists in gilding the glass underneath. The gold leaf is applied with water and gelatin miction, then reattached to the reverse with oil paint so that it can adhere to its glass support.

Inspired by Japanese kintsugi, the artist creates mirrors with deliberate breaks that she enhances with gold. The artist perceives a highly introspective dimension: when the viewer looks through the cracked object, all they see is a broken reflection. Myriam sees this confrontation as a mise-en-abyme of the viewer’s fragile soul, materialized on the object. She freezes this vulnerability in gold leaf, infusing it with aestheticism and poetry.

Unlike polyurethane or acrylic paints, kintsugi is also a restoration technique that is harmless to humans. When an object is restored in this way, it can be reused. She associates the idea of resilience with this process, although it has no connection with the Japanese approach of kintsugi. The viewer is projected through the restored object, which is why her works have often been used to illustrate psychology books.

Finally, her experiments focus on the interplay of reflections and the creation of contemplative objects. In particular, she creates mirrors adorned with marbling. Ancient craftsmanship and traditional techniques are fundamental to her work.  To achieve this, she uses bitumen of Judea, the traditional medium for aging gold: the marbling is thus the result of the repulsion of fat and water.