16/11/19
in Process
Work in progress.
10/11/19
in Process
Work in progress.
Moving '19
Papa celebrates the completion of a large scale Tetris puzzle
Refuel
It’s easier the second time
20/10/2019
A pinned bluebottle fly, partially eaten by a dermestid beetle.
167th Open Exhibition @ RWA
Haruka Hashiguchi, Field #12
Geoff Hodgson, Bus Stop
Julie Leach, Wind Dance IV
Julie Parker, Stilettos
Bristol
in Travel
"Passing Through" in the RWA Annual Open!
The Royal West of England Academy’s 167th Annual Open Exhibition opens today, and I’m proud to have one of my pieces (Passing Through, 2019) shown in it. This photo is from yesterday’s private view. It can sometimes be hard to stay motivated to keep making personal work in your spare time, so any bits of validation like this can feel really nice. I was able to see some other interesting work which I'll write a bit about in the coming days.
Margaret Curtis @ Contemporary Ceramics Centre
in Inspiration
These are some photos I took of my favourite works from “Surface”, a show of Margaret Curtis’ work currently on at the Contemporary Ceramics Centre in Bloomsbury.
When looking at ceramics I instinctively jump straight to drawing links between the clay form and the human form. I can’t help it, it’s my primary method for interacting with and understanding ceramic work. One of the things that attracts me to Margaret’s work is the fleshy quality I see in some of her pieces. Areas of pink seem to sit just below the surface, showing through from underneath the white, softened and diffused, visible almost in spite of the white. These remind me of bruising, of flesh that has been mistreated, but where the skin has not been broken. An injury, but not quite a wound.
This is in contrast to some of Margaret’s other pieces which display marks more typical of a wound, a breaking of the white surface glaze layers to the dark clay body underneath. On some pieces the “wounds” look almost like something bursting out of a body, of an inner force pushing outwards, the clay ripping and tearing. Others are a reverse of this, the marks more clearly coming from the outside, breaking the thicker surface glaze more cleanly, like stab wounds. There is a photo of Curtis in the show, in which she is pictured making incisions into one of the pieces, wielding her wooden tool like a weapon.
Surface is on at the Contemporary Ceramics Centre in Bloomsbury until September 14th.
Two Orchids
Hymenopus coronatus (Orchid Mantis) first instar sat on an orchid flower