Debbie Bourke Mosaic Artist

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What is the pique assiette technique anyway?

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​​The term pique assiette has a French origin and various sources say it means ‘stolen plate’ or ‘broken plate’. It is a style of mosaic that incorporates pieces of ceramic shards from tableware: dishes, cups, tiles and other found objects into the design. Traditional mosaics used small cubes that were relatively uniformly shaped, pique assiette or trencadis tends to use non-uniform pieces

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The art was first seen in the works of the Catalan architect and artist, Antoni Gaudi, who was a pioneer of the Art Nouveau movement. Appeal and expressiveness of  the pique assiette style lies in the ideas of lateral thinking, humour, recycling, and the significance of the found objects.

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Start with imagination then select, break, arrange and glue. Then skilled use of tools such as nippers, a hammer, tweezers, skewers, cement adhesives, silicon and grout.

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