the Modeling - G.tM.-CERAMIC STUDIES
the Modeling; Ceramic studies was my residency
project at the European Ceramic Work Centre. For this series, I explored
the possibilities of ‘displaying’ the chemical potential of ceramics using layers of crystalline zinc
silicates. the formation, shapes and colours of the images are determined by
heat, oxides and layers in the claybody.
EKWC.nl
EKWC.nl
During my residency I came across an essay from Douglas Coupland.
His proposal, to reclassify contemporary craft as art-objects that
deploy craftsmanship as their medium, resonate strongly with my curiosity towards the material properties of ceramics. [...] Craft?! Yikes, Spit take. Craft is not art.
Craft is skill based. Craft is sentimental. Craft has no critical
rigor. Craft means that a (one must grudgingly admit) creative person
has chosen to limit his or her expression to one medium - one
medium - in a post medium world
where it is only the idea that is permitted to generate form.
And
enter the next generation of craft: skill married with what seems to
be critical rigor and a willingness that, in the presence of an
increasingly arid conceptual realm, now feels almost radical. One
can look at some of the contemporary art being made and reclassify it
by saying that it is folk art that uses
modernist vernaculars as its medium. Similarly,
one can reclassify some contemporary craft as art objects that
deploy craftsmanship as their medium. It’s wordplay, but it is
increasingly more relevant wordplay.