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“Thoughts on Ceramics: the art vs craft debate ‘taking it further’”
1. The artwork and making method
The artist is currently dealing with contradiction using the title “The Hidden Form: hiding in plain site”. Using wrapped sculptural kewpie dolls as’ thought forms’, or ceramic boxes, the artist makes use of the repetitive mould making techniques – both slip cast and press-moulded. Raku/resist raku techniques are employed using a 4/5 firing method that includes glass/printing and mixed media such as cloth dipped in slip or simply wrapped in printed material. The resist raku is sheared away in parts, revealing layers of printed text.
1. About the artist and the artwork
The artist is working both with a community project for the City of Cape Town Festival – Infecting the City – ( which takes place in March 2013) as well as exhibiting conceptual works within the conventional gallery space. The community project involves the hiding of “gifts”. Wrapped “kewpie dolls” are distributed/hidden/abandoned within the city centre. These objects are seen by the artist as “dumb beautiful ministers”, as they have both printed wording on them as well as being wrapped in printed cloth and are site specific. Willing participants, who stumble across them unawares and who have the “prepared mind’, dwell in the wonder/confusion/disruption and delight of this ‘found’ object, which in turn allows for the humour of play and escape. The project is about street ‘installation’ which includes photography as documentation. The installation works within the gallery space are conceptual works of art. Using both “wrapped kewpies’ or boxes, the artist plays with the idea: “who determines what space is?” who determines “what art is”? The installation is created in the gallery floor space wherein these repetitive art forms are either wrapped or placed in boxes, those hidden forms being revealed when the participant/viewer is allowed to ‘touch’ and unwrap.
2. Facts on ceramics
The art vs craft debate continues in our country but one of the key uniting elements with pottery and ceramic sculpture is the ‘element of fire’ and it is this fire that sets ceramic sculpture apart from any other form of sculpture, be it bronzing, glass fibre, wood etc., and therefore to determine the term “sculpture”, in the medium of ceramics, there is no clear-cut definition. Without meaning, ceramic sculpture would simply become ‘ornament’ and an artworks primary function should be conceptual/ enquiry/elucidation and expression, and it is along these lines of discussion that the lecture will be considered/challenged and debated.
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