The challenging of utilitarian and craft prejudices against ceramics stimulates my work. I believe that life and art are one, that the domestic table and vessels that inhabit it are a sculptural landscape worthy of any gallery or museum. My ethos combines ceramic and architectural approaches, drawing on their common practices to embody a particular, architectural way of thinking. I explore the de-familiarisation and subversion of the domestic table and vessels through architectural methods can illuminate the truly artistic qualities of craft and utility.
Viewing the table and vessels as a catalyst for discourse, I invite the audience to examine the apparent boundaries between disciplines (ceramics, sculpture and architecture). By taking inspiration from Brutalist architectural forms, I deconstruct and reconfigure familiar vessels to create narratives that diverge from utility and become spatial and sculptural, emphasizing omnipresence of art in our material environment.
In this body of work, vessels are given further ambiguity by their surfaces. Porcelain- based engobes reminiscent of industrial concrete, while blue crawl glaze references (yet de-familiarises), the classical porcelain production that is so universally recognisable in domestic settings. Cobalt marks suggest vessels’ function; however, they are reminiscent of a connection between inner- outer space.
The arrangement of my vessels follows the relationship between inner space of the vessels – the essence of the pot and house – and the outer space between them.
