Agnès Wyler
Entre Ciel et Terre
Ceramic Birds on Display at Nieves in Zurich, October 2026
Various Sizes, Prices between $25 and $950
Contact us for more Information post@nieves.ch
There is an old story of a bird known as the hol, a phoenix-like creature, aboard Noah’s Ark. While the other animals were being fed, the bird asked for nothing. It had seen how overwhelmed Noah was caring for each species, each with its own needs and rhythms, and did not want to add to his burden. When Noah wondered why the bird had gone without food, the hol simply replied that it had not wanted to trouble him. For this act of consideration, Noah blessed the hol with eternal life.
The story has stayed with Agnès Wyler since childhood.
Not because the bird was powerful, but because it was not. It was hungry, yet chose not to take. Its strength lies elsewhere: in restraint, attention, and compassion. Perhaps another kind of transformation begins here – when the heart of flesh gives way to something less tangible, something that may endure beyond the limits of the body. The hol is a figure of disappearance and return: a creature that passes through fire and, after a thousand years, diminishes almost to the size of an egg. From this fragile remnant, it emerges renewed.
The ceramic series Entre Ciel et Terre unfolds within this movement between disappearance and becoming. Like the ark suspended upon the water, the works inhabit a space between what has been left behind and what may begin again. In the series, birds are reduced to a few elemental gestures, hovering between creature and sign, recognition and invention. Familiar yet elusive, they seem to belong to a world just beyond our own.
Clay is fragile. Fire gives it permanence, but never makes it invulnerable. A ceramic form may endure for centuries and still break in an instant. What survives the fire remains vulnerable.The transformation of clay echoes that of the hol. Both pass through fire and emerge altered. Yet neither reaches a final state. The ceramic may endure, the hol may return, but the possibility of rupture and renewal remains within them. Earth, water, fire, and air become part of the same passage between states. Everything is transformed, nothing disappears.
The French word terre carries a quiet double resonance: earth as matter, and the Earth we inhabit. Here, the two become inseparable. From earth emerge creatures that seem drawn towards the sky. Entre ciel et terre is not a place, but a threshold: between earth, sky, water and fire, vulnerability and endurance, disappearance and return. It is the moment of metamorphosis, when the birds rise, year after year, in an endless cycle.
All Titles by Agnès Wyler
Entre Ciel et Terre
Ceramic Birds on Display at Nieves in Zurich, October 2026
Various Sizes, Prices between $25 and $950
Contact us for more Information post@nieves.ch
There is an old story of a bird known as the hol, a phoenix-like creature, aboard Noah’s Ark. While the other animals were being fed, the bird asked for nothing. It had seen how overwhelmed Noah was caring for each species, each with its own needs and rhythms, and did not want to add to his burden. When Noah wondered why the bird had gone without food, the hol simply replied that it had not wanted to trouble him. For this act of consideration, Noah blessed the hol with eternal life.
The story has stayed with Agnès Wyler since childhood.
Not because the bird was powerful, but because it was not. It was hungry, yet chose not to take. Its strength lies elsewhere: in restraint, attention, and compassion. Perhaps another kind of transformation begins here – when the heart of flesh gives way to something less tangible, something that may endure beyond the limits of the body. The hol is a figure of disappearance and return: a creature that passes through fire and, after a thousand years, diminishes almost to the size of an egg. From this fragile remnant, it emerges renewed.
The ceramic series Entre Ciel et Terre unfolds within this movement between disappearance and becoming. Like the ark suspended upon the water, the works inhabit a space between what has been left behind and what may begin again. In the series, birds are reduced to a few elemental gestures, hovering between creature and sign, recognition and invention. Familiar yet elusive, they seem to belong to a world just beyond our own.
Clay is fragile. Fire gives it permanence, but never makes it invulnerable. A ceramic form may endure for centuries and still break in an instant. What survives the fire remains vulnerable.The transformation of clay echoes that of the hol. Both pass through fire and emerge altered. Yet neither reaches a final state. The ceramic may endure, the hol may return, but the possibility of rupture and renewal remains within them. Earth, water, fire, and air become part of the same passage between states. Everything is transformed, nothing disappears.
The French word terre carries a quiet double resonance: earth as matter, and the Earth we inhabit. Here, the two become inseparable. From earth emerge creatures that seem drawn towards the sky. Entre ciel et terre is not a place, but a threshold: between earth, sky, water and fire, vulnerability and endurance, disappearance and return. It is the moment of metamorphosis, when the birds rise, year after year, in an endless cycle.
All Titles by Agnès Wyler