|
Some notes from the artist
OBLIMATION – The deposit of mud and silt by water.
In January 2009 I was given the opportunity to work on ceramics with Lino Alvarez in Hill End where I live.
I did not want to just do images on platters and things Lino had made, but wanted, instead, to make individual, unique sculptural works myself - guided by Lino’s expertise. My grandmother made wedding cakes on commission and flowers for the cakes out of Royal Icing. She taught me how to do this – and now, years later, I have done it in clay.
Ceramics, being a very ancient form of expression with its uses and cultural history over centuries of time, interested me. I am interested in the fact that the clay comes from the ground and has widely differing qualities. The flowers, bones and other details in my ceramic works were made from fine white clay. This was in conjunction with rough, gritty, coarse orange clay – sometimes in combination with found objects such as metal and glass – all from the ground – an antithesis. I used glazes of various oxides and once the works were fired the metals used in some took on the look of the oxide glazes and the clay parts, in turn, looked like old metal. Most of the white clay is unglazed.
Top
|
The ceramic works are related to my life and interests: history, folklore (land and sea), bush structures, sign posts, primitive forms, discarded things, shards in the ground, foundations and footings of long gone buildings, old anonymous mechanical things, tree stumps, coils of rusty wire, tools, rope, bones, the colour of the ocean, nature and astronomy. It’s not so much about stories, or nostalgia, but facts and observations.
There is a theory that heavy things in the ground find their way to the surface – we know that the things in water that don’t float sink to the seabed or, like gold, lodge in the cracks and crevices of river beds.
My new paintings also continue to explore parallel ideas and interests along similar paths.
|
|
