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Flight, 2025
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Kindred, 2025
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Mad(r)onna, 2025
Sébastien Pochan is a winemaker and artist-woodworker who is based in Healdsburg, California. He grew up in France, Africa, and Tahiti. In his thirties, he became fascinated with furniture making and traditional joinery techniques through the works of George Nakashima and Shaker craftsmen.
In the early months of the pandemic, he started experimenting with abstract carvings and has since begun to incorporate lathe turned pieces into some of his sculpture. He cites Constantin Brancusi, Barbara Hepworth, Martin Puryer, and JB Blunk as sources of inspiration. His work has been shown at Gallery Lulo in Healdsburg, Carter&Co in St Helena, and Themes and Projects Gallery at the Minnesota Street Project in San Francisco.
“I work mainly with salvaged wood from the area around Healdsburg (oak, walnut, madrone, bay), and my process is usually driven by the initial shape of the piece of wood. I think wood turning has influenced the forms that emerge from my carving, the curves, the hollows..."
"Some forms re-emerge regularly that resemble vessels or masks (possibly from my exposure to African folk art). There is also a recurrence of inside/outside surfaces as a metaphor for the hidden and mysterious within ourselves and nature. I don't really think about a possible meaning until the piece is almost done so it is as if some deeper insight was revealed through the process of making and that part is immensely gratifying.”
