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Ceramics in Conversation

...at the same time, a relational turn was taking place, fuelled by a systemic interest in the nature of creativity. This shift was timely in regard global events, from the refugee Crisis in 2016 to growing awareness of ecological responsibilities and practice begins to pull all areas of concern together: creative thinking, clay, and ethnographic study... 

Small Talk: Conversations
in Clay

‘Small Talk’ examines the sociality of clay on a nuanced level, by applying approaches commonly used in the practice of Oral History, to devise model of co-construction that can sensitize those involved to the nature of human interaction, and act as a register of the ‘smaller stories’ in the details of shared experiences.  

Collaboration with Kim Norton and Sam Lucas

The beginnings of taking 'Flightlines' into clay

Flightlines:
Conversations
about
Life with Clay

an approach that moves beyond the focus of the studio, in accounting for creativity that includes the entanglement of multiple, interconnected demands such as those of family, social / community, or wider global/ecological events. 

NCECA / ICF /  COCA

Snippets from conversations during ICF and soon to be transferred into a podcast series

A Life Told Through Shards

it occurred to me that you really enjoy how stories thread themselves within and around objects, so I was hoping we could use the ceramic shards you have collected since childhood, as a timeline to explore your life with clay, how they each contain their own histories and continue to influence your ceramics …

Article for Ceramics Art and Perception on Behalf of
Llantarnam Grange

Interview conducted as part of Walters solo show at Llantarnam grange Arts Centre

Material Presence:
a Poetic Turn

To explore the metaphoric potential of the work I wove points of reflection, pauses in proceedings where I could repeat salient words/phrases, and read passeges of poetry/prose prior selected to illustrate points. The audience were further encouraged to draw and write in response to this in small sketchbooks which they scanned and emailed to me after the event.  

Passages:
key
critical positions
 

Meaning can be teased from an artwork simply by shifting the frame from which view it.Taking each of the core positions commonly used in art analysis: Semantics / Formalist / Phenomenological / historical / psychoanalytical we draw out the narrative potential of Claire Curneen's exhibition 'Passages' her first Wales based solo exhibition.

Interview conducted as part of Zoe's solo show at Llantarnam grange Arts Centre
Semiotics
04:25

Semiotics

historical
06:36

historical

Interview conducted as part of Claire's solo show at Craft in the Bay. Makers Guild, Cardiff

Placement 
Ceramic 
Connections

The title was not simply a convenience in grouping artists from different places, but embodied the potential of ceramics to reflect and interpret aspects of our environment, society and culture. Taking each artist in turn we set out the diversity of ways in which ceramics achieves this from geology, geography, historical lineage, material values and souvenir.

In Conversation Between Dawn Youll, Lowri Davies and Natasha Mayo about the Exhibition 'Placement' 2011
27:13

In Conversation Between Dawn Youll, Lowri Davies and Natasha Mayo about the Exhibition 'Placement' 2011

PLACEMENT at Oriel Davies Gallery - Fife Contemporary Arts, Scotland 2011 Stephen Bird, Claire Curneen, Lowri Davies, Ken Eastman, Nick Evans, Laura Ford, Anne Gibbs, David Shrigely, Cecile Johnson Soliz, Conor Wilson & Dawn Youll. Featuring contemporary ceramic objects by artists with connections to Wales and Scotland, this original and compelling exhibition explores the narrative possibilities of ceramics through material, form, history, image and context. From the outset this ambitious collaborative project, devised by Oriel Davies Gallery and Fife Contemporary Art & Craft (FCA&C), focused on producing a combined visual art and craft project. Links between Scotland and Wales were a useful departure point and the strength and diversity of ceramic practice suggested the way forward. An innovative ceramic artist based in each country was invited to bring their expertise and passion to the project. Having never met each other previously, ceramicists, Lowri Davies, (Wales) and Dawn Youll, (Scotland), responded enthusiastically to the invitation and embarked on co-curating the exhibition. The notion of place and placement conceived collectively by Davies and Youll, highlights important associations in the field of ceramics concerning location, geography, ritual, commemoration and the souvenir. Each artist-curator was drawn immediately to the work of Laura Ford who uses the ceramic ornament as a means to connect with audiences. This language exploring common themes in Ford’s sculptural practice led Davies and Youll to push borders between artistic practices and to research artists who use and reference clay in a multitude of ways. Works range from Nick Evans’ extraordinary, potent and sculptural totems, marking the idea of ritual and fundamental roots of human existence to the earthy, uprooted terracotta trees by Claire Curneen, hung in stasis and precariously offering the potential for growth through golden roots and branches. Tracing the journey of life is played out and presented through many works, objects which offer stories and connections about our past and present, our environment or even the constructed landscape, assembled and formed in the mind. This exhibition offers an exciting and alternative perspective to ceramics, inviting both artists and audiences to reconsider and reposition their understanding, engagement and relationship with ceramics. A full colour publication accompanies this exhibition and includes an interview between Dr Natasha Mayo, artist and lecturer, Cardiff School of Art& Design and the co-curators. Further information and press images: contact Alex Boyd Jones , Curator on 01686 625041, or email: alex@orieldavies.org

Fragmented Figure

There is a close association between skin and the expression of thought, When blushing, wailing, or sweating
we can be, albeit momentarily, taken over by its conveyance of emotion before we are consciously aware of our own feelings, what Conor describes describes as 'thinking through the skin'

The fragmented Figure
Interpreting Ceramics Issue 8

Fragmented Figure: Frances Woodley
00:58

Fragmented Figure: Frances Woodley

As the interview continues, using examples of her ceramics as illustration, Woodley further describes ways in which she has negotiated aspects of the human form and a sense of the ‘other’, from the unconscious mind to the traversing of realities. Footage includes explanation of how she has been interested in, and influenced by, Northern European painting, Surrealism and, most recently, passages in Rosalind Krauss’ ‘Bachelors’. …so it was already truncated. To then cut it up, you start to make fragments but the re-composing of those fragments then started to work so that this side was of this world; it is vertical and so therefore it becomes assertive, and this part looks away and then maybe, I didn’t realize this at the time but I am beginning to realize it now, that this may subscribe more to the sense of the abject or at least not of this world, or the other. So maybe the portrait, the self and the other comes out of this one. But this is very much an exercise, its not producing a piece of work for an exhibition, this is in a sense investigating and resolving ideas.
Fragmented Figure: Babette Martini
01:55

Fragmented Figure: Babette Martini

This extract follows Babette Martini’s explanation of the wider context and specific concerns of her practice. It is taken from footage recording her particular process of construction accompanied by her description of its significance to the expression of the work. …these are different hands I made earlier. The hands need to dry another night so I can dip them into the plaster clay mix that I’m mixing right now. Its white casting slip I use with pottery plaster and I also add this time 10% syenite to alter the consistency of the coating and all this needs to be well mixed. I hold onto the little handle inside of the hand and dip it into the plaster and after the emersion it needs to be rested. Here, these are nails hammered to a board and they have little clay balls on top, if I would rest the hand immediately on top of the table surface it would stick to it and it would be very difficult to remove. The hands are immersed several times into the plaster clay mix but not all have the same amount of layering, the more I immerse the hand into the plaster the more it will loose its definition and also the nails leave a different impact and contribute to the expression of the hand. In contrast with the other footage the clips of Sabine Heller and Christie Brown do not include interviews. Their significance lies in documenting the ways in which evidence of the process of construction left behind on the surface of the figure can be considered as contributing to its expressive value, specifically to notions of fragmentation.
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