Jacques Monneraud

In just a few years, Jacques Monneraud has developed a signature as ingenious as it is intriguing: functional stoneware pieces that mimic corrugated cardboard with striking fidelity. With his CARTON collection, he freezes the ephemeral in matter, orchestrating a captivating dialogue between the fragile appearance of cardboard and the durability of ceramic.

Jacques Monneraud’s path has been one of successive explorations. Now in his thirties, he spent more than a decade in the Parisian advertising world as an artistic and creative director, even contributing to the creation of the socially engaged communication agency The Good Company. Yet the responsibilities of the profession kept him from the concrete act of making things.

He recalls the ephemeral, and often undervalued, nature of advertising work: spending a year developing a thirty-second campaign that might itself be forgotten in thirty seconds. This growing frustration crystallized his desire to reconnect with meaning and material.

Born into a family of artists—a painter and sculptor mother and a cabinet-maker grandfather—he had always been surrounded with a creative environment. His search led him to explore fields such as watchmaking and animation drawing, but his decisive encounter with clay came in late 2020, when he discovered on his phone a video of English potter Florian Gadsby throwing a piece on the wheel.

He describes the moment as a revelation. Soon after, he enrolled in an intensive workshop and undertook a demanding ten-month training program to obtain a CAP (an equivalent to National Vocational Qualification) in ceramics, accumulating more than 1,250 hours of practice. This career shift, begun in 2021, eventually led him to settle in a studio in Bayonne, on the Basque coast, reconnecting with his native South of France.

In his studio, Jacques Monneraud experiments relentlessly. While initially searching for a particular glazing effect, an unexpected result—a raw, unglazed approach—prompted him to explore further. He developed a specific blend of clays whose texture and color, once fired at high temperature, evoke corrugated cardboard with uncanny accuracy. This technical discovery opened a much broader conceptual field. As the artist explains: “I’ve always been very sensitive to things damaged over time, things that don’t last. The idea of maintaining that fragility really appeals to me.”

This is the paradox at the heart of the CARTON collection: transforming clay —an ancient and durable material—into the perfect image of something perceived as disposable and vulnerable. The folds, grooves, matte surface and apparent rigidity of cardboard are reproduced so convincingly that they can easily deceive the eye.•

photos: Apollo and the Muses, CARTON collection 2026 • Teapot, CARTON collection, 2024 • Jacques Monneraud • Teapot, CARTON collection, 202 • CARTON collection, 2024 • © Jacques Monneraud