Abraham Kritzman & Daniel Silver: Choir is on view at Elizabeth Xi Bauer, London

February 2 – March 30, 2024

Elizabeth Xi Bauer is thrilled to present Choir, a duo exhibition of works by Daniel Silver and Abraham Kritzman. This will be the first time that Silver’s work will be displayed at Elizabeth Xi Bauer Gallery, and the first time both artists exhibit together, evidencing mutual interests, themes, and use of materials in their respective practices.

Abraham Kritzman’s work is an ongoing investigation into notions of man-made – from paintings and sculptures to architecture and landscape. Kritzman’s multidisciplinary production is often influenced by mythical narratives and perennial imagery. His technique is analogous to a dance, where he moves back and forward, adds and removes: symbols, layers of paint and three-dimensional matter, thus creating meanings through paths that are seldom linear. For this upcoming exhibition, Kritzman will exhibit large paintings displayed within painted black box-like structures, creating a looming presence within the Gallery space. These will be accompanied by bronze reliefs which he created in the South London-based Foundry Make Touch, run by artist Katrin Hanusch. Each unique bronze sculpture is patinated by Kritzman and will be installed on the Gallery walls. Both these series delve into the language that the artist has developed over the years, influenced by his travels around the world as well as his personal experiences of everyday life.

Kritzman’s large-scale relief-like paintings bring together a menagerie of images, characters, and figures that merge in a thick layer of paint. To begin creating this body of work, he first adds a base colour as an underlayer. Copious amounts of oil paint are then applied on top of this underlayer, with the colour choice varying for each work. Layers are revealed underneath the wet paint as Kritzman oscillates through various thicknesses in a scoring process, producing intricate patterns and allowing larger areas to expose the underneath painting to a fuller extent. By the nature of paint drying, there is only a finite amount of time for the composition to be created before the window which enables the process begins to close.

Since his artistic debut in the late 1990s, Daniel Silver has shaped an artistic style that is distinctively recognisable as his own. Writer Gilda Williams described in a 2007 article for Art Forum, “Much of London-based sculptor Daniel Silver’s work occupies an in-between state — between complete and incomplete, between handmade and mass-produced, between artistic object and castoff”.

During a visit to the Italian marble quarry city of Carrara in 2007, Silver encountered discarded copies of Greco-Roman statuary, which he appropriated and carved into. These repurposed sculptures were then displayed on roughened wooden plinths, re-evaluating their worth, originality, and the transformation of an object from an artefact into an artwork. Silver continues to evolve his practice, exploring works on paper he participated in the 2019 Drawing Biennale in London. The latest chapter of his sculptural production incorporates the medium of clay. Recent works of unglazed clay painted over in oil paints have allowed him to further explore notions of psychoanalytic theory, human anatomy, and memory.

Such an amalgam of notions converges in a new series of semi-abstract ceramic busts, executed in 2022, that will be displayed in this exhibition. These are adorned with oil paint and bear titles that reference an orchestra: namely a conductor and a selection of choir members. As its signature of his recent sculptures, the plinths are individually customised by the artist, thus acting as colourful geometric underbodies to the busts. Also, on show will be three large works on paper from the Untitled series that Silver made in California’s Death Valley in 2021 – that is, at the height of the pandemic. They consist of variations of the same subject: colourful, gigantic human heads that are devoid of necks. Silver’s work blurs the boundary between reality and imagination, exploring the complexities of human relationships and forms.

Contact
contact@lizxib.com

Elizabeth Xi Bauer Gallery
Fuel Tank, 8-12 Creekside
London SE8 3DX
United Kingdom

Photographs by Richard Ivey. Courtesy of the artists and Elizabeth Xi Bauer Gallery.

• The Korea Ceramic Foundation (KOCEF) just opened the applications for the 2024 Korean International Ceramic Biennale (KICB) International Competition. The event aims to provide ceramists in Korea and abroad an opportunity to present their works, in addition to encouraging the exchange of current trends in ceramic art and proposing a future vision for the field. This year marks the 11th iteration of the competition, which features the KICB Grand Prize worth ~$45,000. The 12th edition will take place for the first time at the Gyeonggi Museum of Ceramic Design in Yeoju. In recognition of their exceptional talent and creativity, the 60 artists selected for the competition will each be honored with the KICB Prize. Read more about the applications on Ceramics Now. The deadline for applications is March 18.

• There are a few days left to apply for the International Ceramics Competition Carouge 2024: Festivities. Three prizes will be awarded: a First Prize in the amount of 10,000 Swiss francs, a prize sponsored by the Bruckner Foundation in the amount of 2,000 Swiss francs, and a prize sponsored by swissceramics in the amount of 1,000 Swiss francs.

• The wonderful people behind the Bird of Paradise International Ceramic Symposium invite artists to apply to this year’s symposium (pdf file), which will take place between May 15-27 at Lopota Lake Resort & Spa, Georgia, Eastern Europe. Applications are due March 4.

• Explore a part of Australia’s vibrant ceramic art scene through Lilianne Milgrom’s recent article. From Claire Ellis’s environmental activism to Georgia Harvey’s cultural explorations and the collaborative brain of Kate Jones & Parker Lev Dupain, discover how these artists blend tradition, community, and activism into extraordinary creations.

• In the green city of Panevėžys, Lithuania, resides an expansive collection of contemporary ceramics. While the locals may not be entirely aware of the city’s international ceramic symposiums, Panevėžys stands as a distinguished hub for global ceramists. Read Aurelija Seilienė’s article about the vibrant world of the Panevėžys International Ceramic Symposium.

• Applications are open for the Off Center International Ceramics Art Competition until Monday, February 26. Organized by Blue Line Arts (California), this year’s competition is seeking a special focus on installation artworks and large-scale ceramics.

• CERCCO (the Center for Experimentation and Realisation in Contemporary Ceramics of the Geneva University of Art and Design) invites applications for two residencies of 3 months. Workspace at CERCCO is open to designers, artists, architects and ceramists wishing to experiment and carry out a specific project. CERCCO will make a wide range of technical and artistic expertise available. Applications deadline: March 15.

• Belger Arts (Kansas City) invites artists to apply to their residencies until March 1st. Their programs are open to artists looking to further their artistic and professional careers and gain experience in a working studio environment. They currently accept applications for residencies beginning in August.

• Book recommendation: The Mold-Making Manual: The Art of Models, Molds, and Slip-Cast Ceramics, by Jonathan Kaplan. In this book, Jonathan draws on his 55+ years of experience to provide a methodology for problem-solving in ceramics, using plaster not only as a design tool but also as a way to generate forms for reproduction.

• Join artists Harriet Hellman and Jess Skelton for Clay in Conversation 7: Connection, the seventh in a series of conversations curated by artist Julia Ellen Lancaster, presenting artists working with clay and ceramics. Each conversation centers on a specific theme – acting as a lens through which the artists will present a piece of work or project. A Q&A session with the audience follows the presentations. The event will be held at the University of Westminster, London, on March 8.

• The Archie Bray Foundation (Helena, MT) has several new positions open, including Exhibitions and Events Assistant Manager, Gallery Sales Associate, Digital Content Creator, and Development and Events Coordinator.

• What’s On View: En Iwamura: Yama-Asobi is on view at Ross+Kramer, Miami / Patrice Renee Washington: Tendril is on view at The Institute for Contemporary Art at VCU, Richmond / Resonance by Lisa Creskey, Susan Day & Eddy Firmin is on view at The Canadian Clay and Glass Gallery, Ontario / Terra Incognita is on view at Valcke Art Gallery, Ghent / Colour & Movement is on view at the Leach Pottery Museum, St Ives / Sylvia Netzer: Goddesses + Emaciation is on view at A.I.R. Gallery, New York / Kimiyo Mishima is on view at Sokyo Gallery, Kyoto / Edges is on view at Wexford Arts Centre, Wexford

Exhibitions

Discover these ceramic exhibitions that were recently featured in Ceramics Now.

• California Clay at Bedford Gallery, Walnut Creek
• Bente Skjøttgaard: Timberline at Galerie Maria Lund, Paris
• Donna Green: At Last, No More at HB381 Gallery, New York
• Reyaz Badaruddin and Élodie Alexandre: From a home in the hills at GallerySKE, New Delhi
• Feigned Utility: New Ceramic Work by Shalene Valenzuela at Plinth Gallery, Denver
• Jinsik Yoo: Procession at Jane Hartsook Gallery, New York

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Featured image: Resonance by Lisa Creskey, Susan Day & Eddy Firmin at The Canadian Clay and Glass Gallery, Ontario

Rachel Grimshaw (b. 1967) is based in her hometown of Wigan in North England. She attended St Helens School of Art, followed by Manchester Polytechnic (3-dimensional design course, specializing in interior design), graduating with a BA Hons. She has been an Interior Designer within an architectural practice since 1990, hence her ongoing interest in architecture and a sense of place. In 2009, she gained a Distinction in MA in Ceramics at the University of Central Lancashire, Preston. Professional Membership of the Craft Potters Association was granted in 2012. Exhibitions have been held widely in the UK, including at Galerie Besson, London, The Bluecoat Display Centre, Liverpool, The Yorkshire Sculpture Park, Contemporary Ceramics, London, and Pangolin London sculpture gallery. She was selected to show at Ceramic Art London in 2022 at Central St Martins University of the Arts London.

Her pieces have been exhibited widely beyond the UK in several international competition exhibitions in countries such as Australia, Spain, Hungary, Romania, Italy, Latvia, and Japan, where she gained an ‘Honourable Mention’ at MINO in 2014 and was awarded ‘The Land of Pottery’ 2nd prize at the Mallorcan Ceramics Biennale. A solo show in Rome followed a residency at C.R.E.T.A, where she produced a new body of work using locally dug clay, entitled ‘Genius Locii’. In 2023, she was awarded 3rd prize at the XVII International Contemporary Ceramics Award, Cerco, in Zaragoza, Spain.

Rachel Grimshaw’s work is in several international collections, including Mino, Japan, and the Foundation for Contemporary Ceramic Arts in Hungary. She currently sells her work via several online galleries, including Sculpture Source, curated by Pangolin London sculpture gallery.

Visit Rachel Grimshaw’s website and Instagram page.

Featured work

Selected works, 2019-2023

Rachel Grimshaw: Selected works, 2019-2023

My work is about the clay; its pliable, immediate qualities. Like a photograph capturing a ‘frozen moment,’ this material, when fired, fixes forever a gesture, an impression. In my unusual working method of using solid forms, I aim to achieve precision and fluidity, energy and stillness.

Hand building in both solid Parian porcelain and, separately, heavily grogged stoneware, marks are created by impressing found objects into the wet clay, their origins occasionally hinted at. Living in the North of England, the sculptural qualities of landscape find their way into my work; linear imprints referencing the lines of dry stone walls across the contours of a hillside. Some forms allude to the built environment but deliberately avoid explicit references. How the light interacts with a piece is an important factor in the presentation. Although my work has no prescribed narrative, there is a meditative quality, both in the physical making and in the finished piece. I value the function of contemplation my forms bring and their ability to represent the nature of silences.

I often work in twos or a small series of pieces, the mark-making connecting each piece. These work in a dialogue, reflecting, responding, and contradicting, like riffing on a theme.

The stoneware clay is coloured when wet with body stains and oxides, some in muted tones, others humming with intensity. The pieces are fired in an electric kiln over three days. In pushing the material to its limits, my wish is to explore three-dimensional shapes which seem to change from every angle while retaining a real sense of the qualities of clay.

Captions

• Timbral Variety, 2023, stoneware, 30cm high
• A Distillation of Echoes, 2020, stoneware, 14cm high x 67cm wide
• Black Interrupted, 2022, stoneware, 26cm high
• Blue Echo Pots, 2021, stoneware, 12cm high x 8cm wide
• Cadence, 2022, stoneware, 12cm high x 6cm wide
• Chronos + Kairos, 2020, stoneware, 36cm high
• Cloud Walking, 2019, stoneware, 25cm high
• Impromptu, 2021, stoneware, 31cm high
• Into Silence, 2021, stoneware, 30cm high
• Parian Quartet, 2022 Parian porcelain, 18cm high
• Paros Duo, 2022, Parian porcelain, 18cm high
• Pink Tower, 2020, stoneware, 28cm high
• Singular, 2020, stoneware, 14cm high x 21cm wide
• Spots of Time, 2022, stoneware, 27cm high

Bente Skjøttgaard: Timberline is on view at Galerie Maria Lund, Paris

February 2 – March 16, 2024

An oak can grow to be one thousand years old. A tree thus becomes a witness of time and evolutions: unfavorable weather, natural disasters, and human intervention make themselves part of it and alter its aspect.

With Timberline, Bente Skjøttgaard allows the millennial tree to speak: she imagined a fossilized, eternal, mysterious, and aethereal forest where enormous trees materialize history —and stories.

Her new sculptures, be they straight or curved, shoot up to the sky or run alongside the ground. They convey these quiet forces with great dynamism. Her surfaces, dense or openwork, evoke the thin structures of the microscopic fabric of a tree. Some of them, with their irregular mosaics, seem to outline the bark structure. Gradations of white prevail, in contrast with delicate shades of green, deep shades of blue, or even a delicious pink. A silvery sparkle is brought here and there by some knot, some appendix, some parasite growth in tin casting.

Timberline represents a border beyond which some forms of life cannot survive, thus extending a symbolic invitation to treasure life and value its importance. Here Bente Skjøttgaard pays tribute to trees, to their slow growth, to their resilient nature and their ability to absorb waste, to the precious shelter they become for many animals and tiny life forms.

By naming her works Family Tree, she suggests a parallel with the human family, with its succession of generations and its young shoots growing both under the protection of the older trees and in their shadow.

In the winter of 2005 and 2006, European forests were devastated by a storm. Seeing the ground strewn with uprooted, mutilated trees, Bente Skjøttgaard had then modeled naked roots, trunks, and heaps of branches through a range of green, yellow, and brown glazes reminiscent of utilitarian pottery. Two years later, the artist would revisit the origins of ceramic materials with Elements in White. There, rocks, organic materials, and human littering came together to make colossal sculptures unified through white glazes of extraordinary textures —coarse coral-like surfaces, cracks, sugar coating. Civilization, culture, and nature had met in this tour de force of materials.

Although Timberline relates to these past two series, it is also the result of a journey through the history of Franco-Danish ceramics of the late 19th century and early 20th century. This journey started when the Vejen Kunstmuseum in Denmark devoted a research project to Niels Hansen Jacobsen (1861-1941), following the 2020 monographic exhibition dedicated to him by the Musée Bourdelle. The Danish artist lived in Paris for ten years, having the sculptor Jean Carriès (1855-1894) as a neighbor. Jean Carriès was known for his pioneer work in ceramics, born from his fascination for pieces from the Chinese Song period and from the exclusive use of local materials characteristic of that technique. The Vejen Kunstmuseum’s research project aimed at digging deeper into the secrets of Niels Hansen Jacobsen’s overflowing creativity with the help of ten artists-ceramicists, including Bente Skjøttgaard. The Danish artist might have gotten hold of Jean Carriès’s glaze recipes, published posthumously by his assistant L. Auclair in the article Céramique de grand feu in Art et Décoration in October 1910. Working from this hypothesis, Bente Skjøttgaard tried to interpret Carriès’ recipes using his flagship principle: working on local and contemporaneous materials. LECA balls, bricks, crushed volcanic stones, and scoria from Niels Hansen Jacobsen’s kiln are all put together to form new glazes. Particularly inspired by one specific work of his —VKV3050, a small jug with a pewter handle shaped like a branch from his Parisian period—, Bente Skjøttgaard learned the casting techniques of lost wax and sand cast. This is how tin elements —partially visible, partially hidden— got themselves into Bente Skjøttgaard’s lexicon, linking her work to the fundamental research and the mysterious experiments of alchemists of yore, themselves closely related to the history of ceramics.

Feeding the human imagination from times immemorial, trees and what they might be hiding inspired countless stories and tales. Similarly, the sculptures in Timberline tell tales of temporality, of resilience, of family, and of environmental issues. These works also tell us a story of inspiration between generations of artists and of the links between the French and Danish art avant-gardes of the late 19th century, which are once again renewed by the experiments and the embodied poetry so characteristic of Bente Skjøttgaard.

Timberline is Bente Skjøttgaard’s ninth exhibition at the Galerie Maria Lund, marking two decades of collaboration between the artist and the gallery.

Contact
T. +33 (0)1 42 76 00 33

Galerie Maria Lund
48 Rue de Turenne
75003 Paris
France

Photos by Axel Fried. Courtesy of Bente Skjøttgaard & Galerie Maria Lund

Captions

• Family Tree #2326, stoneware, glaze, tin, 59x35x40 cm
• Family Tree #2324, stoneware, glaze, tin, 49x31x27 cm
• Family Tree #2319, stoneware, glaze, tin, 50x28x29 cm
• Family Tree #2352, stoneware, glaze, tin, 20x13x14 cm
• Family Tree #2339, stoneware, glaze, tin, 56x30x31 cm
• Family Tree #2338, stoneware, glaze, tin, 79x41x39 cm
• Timberline #2334, stoneware, glaze, 56x50x50 cm
• Timberline #2332, stoneware, glaze, 51x62x64 cm
• Timberline #2327, stoneware, glaze, 50x58x28 cm
• Family Tree #2323, stoneware, glaze, tin, 53x51x45 cm
• Timberline #2330, stoneware, glaze, 31x30x24 cm
• Family Tree #2346, stoneware, glaze, tin, 15x14x11 cm

California Clay is on view at Bedford Gallery, Walnut Creek, CA

January 13 – March 31, 2024

Bedford Gallery presents a survey of California-based artists working in clay with the exhibition California Clay. In response to the recent ceramics renaissance in the contemporary art world, this exhibition features an intriguing mix of functional, aesthetic, and conceptual works that highlights the versatility of the medium and celebrates ceramics as both functional and fine art.

Ceramics have a long, rich global history originating with the functional use of pottery. Over thousands of years, artists have evolved the medium into aesthetic and conceptual fine art while others, like featured artists Kat Hutter & Roger Lee, Mary Law, Brandon Lipe, Nancy Selvin, and Sandy Simon, continue to honor ancient pottery traditions with their beautiful functional works that explore form in expanded ways. For Law, function informs her daily practice, imagining how the handle of her signature bird-like ewers might feel or how the gentle cascade of water from the spout might look and sound. In her Trophy series, Selvin turns to the urn to capture the true essence of clay and celebrate remarkable figures, like Abstract Expressionist women, and artistic concepts. With Red, for instance, pays tribute to the color’s myriad meanings across cultures.

Previously labeled craft, ceramics found footing in the fine art world during the California Clay Movement of the 1950s, a period when artists sculpted clay with aesthetics, rather than function, in mind. Contemporary California artists such as Sara Bright, Mark Goudy, YehRim Lee, Mary Alison Lucas, Liza Riddle, and Erik Scollon continue to push the boundaries of what clay can do and be. As an homage to her birthplace, YehRim Lee employs traditional Korean hand-building techniques to create contours and planes that jut out from the wall or pedestal. Decadent, colorful glazes flood the fragmented surfaces in her series, Dopamine Dressing, to attempt to trick the brain into releasing mood lifting chemicals. Goudy meticulously captures subtle, often unseen, yet complex geometry in nature. As a former engineer, he harnesses science to 3D print “mother molds” for his intricate, undulating ceramics that capture the light and shadows of sine waves.

Other contemporary ceramicists use clay as a vehicle to address complex concepts. In California Clay, Robert Brady, Reniel Del Rosario, Christopher Fortin, Phyllis Green, Ahn Lee, Cathy C. Lu, Nathan Lynch, and Ehren Tool explore topics relating to the body, identity, value, politics, and war in their work. Based in Santa Monica, Green molds and morphs clay into bodily representations as seen in her Odd Old Things series. Inspired by Degas’ dainty ballerinas, Green’s bulbous, rust colored sculptures provide a stark contrast and apropos commentary on aging. For Tool, clay is a bridge between his service in the Gulf War and civilian life, a material that “is very responsive and immediate but once it goes through the fire it is unchanged for many years,” much like the aftereffects of war. He prolifically throws cups laden with military insignia and gives them away, many to veterans and their families. The cups become touchstones for unspeakable conversations, bringing awareness that the artist hopes will last well after his lifetime.

Whether for the purpose of function, aesthetics, or concept, the artists in California Clay turn to clay for its expansive creative possibilities. The exhibition showcases the versatility of the medium and ingenuity of contemporary ceramicists.

About Bedford Gallery
Bedford Gallery (BG), a program of the City of Walnut Creek, shows the work of modern and contemporary artists. The gallery is dedicated to providing the public with opportunities to learn about visual arts through public programs that are varied, accessible, challenging, and educational. Its mission is to provide exhibitions and other programs that both reflect and engage the diverse audiences of the entire Contra Costa County region. With 3,500 square feet of exhibition space, Bedford Gallery is the largest municipally operated visual arts facility between the San Francisco Bay Area and Sacramento.

About Lesher Center for the Arts
Lesher Center for the Arts is the premier arts venue in Central Contra Costa County. Located in the heart of downtown Walnut Creek, the center offers three separate theatres and Bedford Gallery, a visual arts gallery, presenting the best of theater, ballet, comedy, and visual art.

Contact
artsrec@walnut-creek.org

Bedford Gallery at Lesher Center for the Arts
1601 Civic Drive
Walnut Creek, CA 94596
United States

In the green city of Panevėžys, Lithuania, resides an expansive collection of contemporary ceramics. While the locals may not be entirely aware of the city’s international ceramic symposiums, Panevėžys stands as a distinguished hub for global ceramists. Within the Baltic region, only three principal events underscore the realm of ceramic symposia: the Kohila Symposium in Estonia, the Ceramics Laboratory in Latvia, and the Panevėžys International Ceramic Symposium in Lithuania. Consequently, the Lithuanian manifestation emerges as a preeminent fixture within the domain of artistic discourse.

Ceramic symposiums in the Baltic region

According to Lithuanian ceramist Eglė Einikytė-Narkevičienė, who has participated in all three symposiums, they are very different in their spirit. Kohila and Panevėžys international symposiums have deep traditions dating back more than 20 years. Meanwhile, Ceramics Laboratory has been running for over ten years. As E. Einikytė-Narkevičienė mentioned during the Kohila symposium, the main focus is on the process, not the result. This is where teamwork takes place during firing, and personal artists’ ambitions can be changed during this process. In the Ceramics Laboratory symposium, the idea is the sharing of ideas. Wide opportunities are provided for everyone to realize their creative ideas; however, the sizes of the works are limited. In Panevėžys, according to her, you can decide everything by yourself from A to Z. It is possible to control the process in terms of size, glazes, and quantity.

Kohila Symposium is an annual international wood-fired ceramics event held since 2001 in Kohila City, Estonia, and has already hosted 230 artists from 35 countries. The first anagama-type kiln was built in the Tohisoo Manor Park. Every year, organizers invite up to 11 artists for a three-week working process. After every symposium, there is an exhibition of creative works left to the collection of the event. Since 2021, there has been a biennale parallel program at the symposium involving the making and firing of a fire sculpture.

Ceramics Laboratory in Daugavpils, Latvia, has been held since 2013. It is also an annual event that brings together around 10-15 participants from abroad and from Latvia to support the local community. The organizers are the Latvian Centre for Contemporary Ceramics and the Daugavpils Mark Rothko Art Centre (now the Rothko Museum). Artists are invited to abandon their usual principles, images, and forms of creative activity and to indulge in experiments, thus finding new ways and means of complementing their creative work in the future. For two weeks, they can experiment here with different firing techniques. Their works show the encoded cultural signs characteristic of different nations and cultures. This symposium culminates in exhibitions, master classes, workshops, lectures, and the firing of a fire sculpture. Since the inaugural symposium, over 100 ceramists from 32 countries have participated.

The history of Panevėžys International Ceramic Symposium

More than three decades ago, in 1989, the first Panevėžys International Ceramic Symposium was organized on the initiative of young students and graduates of at-that-time Vilnius Art Institute (now Vilnius Academy of Arts), which was attended by 16 artists from various fields of art. The first international ceramics event in Panevėžys was very different from the current symposiums, but it was characterized by vigor, youthful energy, and intense creative mood.

The first steps towards the international ceramics symposium began in 1977 when a Vilnius Art Institute student, Alvydas Pakarklis, started working at the Panevėžys Glass Factory. His interest in the refractory stone mass used in the glass manufacturing industry led to the experiment with this material. The creative process was welcomed and supported by the management of the Glass Factory, especially the Director at that time, Stasys Stoškus. In 1983, students of the same art institute, led by Professor Juozas Adomonis (1932–2022), who also participated in the symposium in 1999, came to the factory for creative practice. Since 1984, creative seminars of Lithuanian ceramic artists have been organized here. The artists always used a high-combustion gas kiln to fire the works at 1380°C. The exceptional size of the kiln (height – 1.80 m, area – 12 m², volume – 20 m3) allowed the creation of works of impressive scale, which later became the hallmark of the collection and the symposium itself.

At the very end of the 1990s, students of Vilnius Art Institute Tomas Daunora, Arūnas Rutkus, and the graduate Rimantas Skuodis (1951–2015) started organizing the first international symposium. They invited Philip Cornelius from the United States of America (1934–2015), the Lithuanian-born American Rimas VisGirda, and the Hungarian Katalin Högye. Together with them, a group of Lithuanians took part here: Romualdas Aleliūnas (1960–2016), Valdas Aničas, Vilija Balčiūnienė, Eugenijus Čibinskas, Nerutė Čiukšienė, Alfridas Pajuodis, Egidijus Radvenskas, Aldona Skudraitė, Gintautas Šveikauskas and Vytautas Tallat- Kelpša. A number of other Panevėžys artists also regularly performed in workshops, although they have not been considered official participants. The creative process took place at the Children’s Art School (on the premises of the former Chapel), the firing took place at the Glass Factory, and the exhibition of the created works was opened at Panevėžys Drama Theater (now Juozas Miltinis Drama Theatre). The first symposium was experimental in nature and laid a strong foundation for the creative process in the future.

When the City Council of Panevėžys established the Art Gallery in 1990, it was responsible for organizing these events. Until 2016, the Director of the Gallery at that time, Jolanta Lebednykienė, has been taking care of organizing the symposiums. Thanks to her efforts, 20 symposiums have been held. Then, symposiums lasted for almost five weeks. Now, the time of the event is a bit more than three weeks.

Chamotte clay used in the creative process is often called “Panevėžys stone mass” by art critics (the stone mass is indeed transported from Ukraine), which shows this event’s importance and position. In more than three decades, 24 symposiums have already taken place. Until 2002, symposiums were held annually at the Glass Factory; since 2004 – every second year, and since 2006 – at a Ceramics Company, “Midenė.” This company produces high-quality artistic ceramics for indoor and outdoor spaces and now has the biggest gas kiln in Lithuania, which is 1.50 m high, with an area of 4,5 m2 and a volume of 6,75 m3. “Midenė” art studios have a lot of working space. Here, participants of the symposiums can work in groups of two or three people (now, about 7-8 artists participate in one symposium). They can also use smaller electric kilns at their own expense. Every participant gets ~150 kg of clay; later, they can use glazes and engobes mixed by “Midenė” or their own glazes and other decor elements.

The fact is that 186 artists from 37 countries took part in these symposiums. The collection now consists of almost 700 works and compositions. This type of large-scale collection of stoneware contemporary ceramics is the only one in the Eastern European region. Currently, in Lithuania, it is the only permanent exposition of contemporary ceramics in the country.

Highlights of the 24th Symposium

In 2023, as many as eight ceramicists from Lithuania, Brazil, the United Kingdom, Poland, Ukraine, Taiwan, and South Korea participated in the 24th symposium. There was no lack of either happy discoveries or bitter disappointments in the creative process. As always, the ambitions of the artists are fulfilled or cut short by one of the main co-authors, the fire, whose grace depends on the happy or disappointing results that await the participants and visitors of the exhibition.

The works of each year’s symposium seem to be divided into several groups, united and separated by ideas and forms, because participants are not asked to work on specific topics. This year was no exception. The created works can be grouped into natural shapes and architectural and structural forms. The works of some authors talk about the intermingling of these two groups; for example, the works of Dmitrij Buławka-Fankidejski, the Polish (b. 1988), suggest a constant change and dependence on each other. The forms he creates are somewhere between a natural and a specially designed shape. The author investigates connections between visible and invisible phenomena that form nature and transfers them into his sculptures. Works of Dmitrij are not finite because they are created so that they can constantly change, grow, and live on, no longer depending on the artist’s decisions, simply under the influence of nature. The artist is originally a sculptor, so sculpting methods shape his works. He uses forms made from foam; clay is put in there, and then the foam is removed. This kind of method lets the artist create big, solid forms. Also, he uses natural, bright colors to enhance the impression of nature. As very aptly noticed by Lithuanian art critic and historian Lijana Šatavičiūtė-Natalevičienė, his works are not inseparable from technological performance and emphasis on content. By this outlook, D. Buławka-Fankidejski is a real modernist.

The creation of Agnė Šemberaitė, the Lithuanian (b. 1972) is multi-layered. Narrative and plot are essential in her works. As in all of the ceramic artist’s work, the work created during the symposium is a mixture of the real and the fictional, the real and the surreal. The author sculpted the deity in the form of a caterpillar – full, calm, all-seeing, and somewhat repulsive, but at the same time inspiring confidence. What remains unclear is whether the metamorphosis will end in a fully human shape or whether the insect origin will finally swallow up any remaining humanness. The artist obtained a master‘s degree in ceramics in 1998 at the Vilnius Academy of Arts; now, she is the chairman of the Vilnius Ceramics Section of the Lithuanian Artists’ Association. In 2022, she won the Gold Prize (in the international category) at the Latvia Ceramics Biennale “Martinsons Award 2021” at the Mark Rothko Art Center in Daugavpils, Latvia.

In her work, Maryna Handysh, the Ukrainian artist (b. 1989), explores the process from the emergence of subconscious images to their transformations when a material shape is born. During the 24th symposium, Maryna created several large sculptures – unfolding flowers, symbolizing the hope that emerges from the depths of a person. The powerful palm not only holds the blossoms but also serves as a safe haven. Usually, she engages in artistic practices of an experimental nature, combining different materials and technologies in her work.

Plant motifs also appear in the works of Viviane Diehl, the Brazilian, born in 1964. She continues her “Forests” series with a tall group of burnt trees. This series promotes aesthetic and, at the same time, symbolic experience, reflections on the relationship between man and nature, and environment and everyday challenges in the modern world. Just as forests are constantly burning, our souls smolder in times of global burnout. Viviane is an artist, art and culture coordinator, lecturer, and researcher who is a frequent guest at various ceramics symposiums. The artist delves into the challenges of the environment and everyday life in the modern world and the interrelationships between ancient and contemporary cultures.

Sunbin Lim, the South Korean representative (b. 1981), also looks for inspiration in specific decay processes. The motifs of his works come from old ruins (old architecture – human origin) and nature that is constantly changing and simultaneously dying (natural origin). Observing the structures, inner spaces, and surface textures of these formations, Sunbin Lim discovers imperfect beauty. Using these ideas, he also creates objects affected by the erosion of time. Sunbin finished his ceramic studies in South Korea and Germany as well. He has won significant awards, including the first prize at the “Cluj Ceramics Biennale” in Romania in 2019 and others.

Wen-Hsi Harman, the Taiwanese artist (b. 1984) living in the United Kingdom, also looks for connections between the two poles. She explores cross-cultural identity. Being in an intermediate state between two cultures gives her the basis to examine such a state when it seems completely independent from one community or the other. Studies of ceramics and art history (she earned a Ph.D. in philosophy) allow her to delve deeper into the study of ceramics. The author tries to reveal her identity using the image of the Formosan Himalayan bear (an endangered species). His V-shaped white collar evokes the victory symbol popular in Western culture. The ceramicist also decorates the surface of the work with small flakes that symbolize fingerprints – signs of uniqueness and exclusivity. Martin Harman, his husband (b. 1986), is far from figurative representation. He bases his work on precise geometric forms, which he modifies and creates new structures. Interestingly, his inspirations are natural architectural monuments, such as Stonehenge. The author is close to a small scale, so even during the symposium, he did not stray too far from his usual size, but the color range changed significantly. From brightly colored solutions, he moved to a relatively moderate color of earth tones. It is no secret that such decisions are dictated by high-firing technology.

Geometric forms and architectural structures are important to Rokas Janušonis, the Lithuanian artist born in 1997. The young artist, who has just completed his master’s studies in ceramics at Vilnius Academy of Arts, looks at clay as a universal material and another tool for expressing an idea, rejecting the craft and functionality typically associated with ceramics. Rokas connects the ceramic volume with the graphic line and explores their interaction. He also used this model for his work at Panevėžys Symposium. The artist actively participates both in the exhibition field and in various competitions of young artists.

The tradition of Panevėžys International Ceramic Symposiums is significant in many aspects. The beginning of the event was a unique opportunity for Lithuanian ceramic artists to become acquainted with the traditions and attitudes of other countries. Now, we can assert that these symposiums have entered the history of Lithuanian art. They formed the creative personality of many ceramic artists, provided knowledge and opportunities, and encouraged improvement. The main goal of the symposium is to unite artists to share ideas. The results are always gratifying in any case, whether they are exactly as expected, unpredictable but positive, or not as expected. However, participants leave not only new works in the collection of the Art Gallery but also memorable experiences and impressions in the participants’ memories.

Aurelija Seilienė is a Lithuanian art critic and curator working in visual arts, mainly ceramics. She earned her Master’s in History and Theory of Arts from the Vilnius Academy of Arts. Seilienė published numerous articles in the Lithuanian cultural press, compiled catalogs about visual arts and ceramics, and wrote introductory articles. She also worked as an expert in various exhibition selection commissions and project financing programs.

Captions

• 24th Panevėžys International Ceramic Symposium exhibition fragment, 2023. Photo by Vilija Visockienė.
• Kohila Ceramic Symposium. Photo by Annika Haas.
• Working process at Ceramics Laboratory. Photo by Pavels Terentjevs.
• Ceramics Laboratory exhibition fragment. Photo by Pavels Terentjevs.
• Participants and organizers of 12th Panevėžys International Ceramic Symposium in the kiln at Glass factory. 2000. Photo by Sergejus Kašinas.
• The kiln at Glass factory. 1998. Photo by Jolanta Lebednykienė.
• Participants of 24th Panevėžys International Ceramic Symposium in front of the kiln at „Midenė“. From left to the right: Sunbin Lim, Viviane Diehl, Agnė Šemberaitė, Dmitrij Buławka-Fankidejski, Maryna Handysh, Rokas Janušonis, Wen-Hsi Harman, Martin Harman. Photo by Gediminas Kartanas.
• Working process at 24th Panevėžys International Ceramic Symposium. Photo by Gediminas Kartanas.
• Working process at 24th Panevėžys International Ceramic Symposium. Photo by Gediminas Kartanas.
• Dmitrij Buławka-Fankidejski. „Phenomenon“. 2023, stoneware, glaze, 70x110x35 cm. Photo by Marius Rudžianskas.
• Agnė Šemberaitė. „Receiver“. 2023, stoneware, porcelain, glaze, underglaze paint, 84x60x53 cm. Photo by Marius Rudžianskas.
• Maryna Handysh. „Pulsation“. 2023, stoneware, glaze, 80x53x50 cm, 85x50x50 cm. Photo by Marius Rudžianskas.
• Viviane Diehl. „Burnout“. 2023, stoneware, engobes, 135x70x70 cm. Photo by Marius Rudžianskas.
• Sunbin Lim. „Wardrobe“. 2023, stoneware, glazes, 50x37x21 cm. Photo by Marius Rudžianskas.
• Wen-Hsi Harman. „Love & Peace“. 2023, stoneware, porcelain, glazes, 31x38x20, 34x32x16 cm. Photo by Marius Rudžianskas.
• Martin Harman. „Bubbles“. 2023, stoneware, glazes, 50x27x25 cm. Photo by Marius Rudžianskas.
• Rokas Janušonis. „Set Pnvz“. 2023, stoneware, engobes, glaze, h 140 ø26, h 111x83x31, h 36x44x48, h 24x27x16. Photo by Marius Rudžianskas.

Kristina Okan is a visual artist born in Russia. She received her Master in Arts Degree from Stroganov’s Academy of Industrial and Applied Arts in Moscow.

Okan has exhibited her works in solo and group exhibitions across Europe and Asia, including the UK, Italy, Spain, Germany and China. She was nominated for the prestigious international ceramic art award Blanc de Chine in 2019 and 2021 and the Koschatzky Art Award in 2021 – the largest graphic award in Europe for young artists.

In 2022, her work for the Moon Gallery Foundation (the first off-planet gallery) was launched to the International Space Station as a part of an artistic and scientific mission.

In her works, Okan examines the beauty and fragility of the natural world, as well as the transformation of matter under the influence of time. Her sculptural language is rooted in classical European traditions of porcelain art, engaging with themes of transformation, biomorphism, and notions of the micro and macrocosm. Okan combines elements of nature in an unexpected way, thus her works carry both grace and “disturbing strangeness”.

Visit Kristina Okan’s website and Instagram page.

Featured work

Selected works, 2022-2023

Kristina Okan: Selected works, 2022-2023

In my artistic practice, I manifest the process of decomposition as the formation of a new aesthetic form by turning withering fruits and vegetables into petrified miniature monuments. My porcelain works usually emerge from the notions of consumption, obsolescence and exploitation. Expressed by fragile decay aesthetics, my works question the idea of beauty itself with its obsessive idolization and ephemerality and, therefore, refer to the plasticity and emotional expression of Louise Bourgeois and Eva Hesse.

In my recent works, I am focused on rethinking the matter of time in the vanitas tradition. The stock thesis on the frailty of life, referable in my works, ascends to the tradition of the Dutch still lifes. I am fascinated by the symbolic system of the signification of XVI and XVII centuries still lifes, based on the Christian connotation of the ripe fruit as an image of the original sin, ephemerality of terrestrial life, and inevitable death. Nonetheless, my works are not about death; they are mostly about the beauty of the moment, representing organic metamorphosis and the imminence of fading as a novel value.

Photos by Marcos Rodriguez Velo

Captions

• Adhesion, 2022, porcelain, 8x11x10cm
• Adhesion, 2022, porcelain, 8x11x10cm and 11x18x16 cm
• Augmentation, 2023, porcelain, 19x11x10 cm
• Harvest, 2023, porcelain, 23x13x15 and 31x10x12 cm
• Harvest, 2023, porcelain, 31x10x12 cm
• Petrified Food, 2023, porcelain, glaze, 30x13x20 and 31x13x22 cm
• Petrified Food, 2023, porcelain, glaze, 30x13x20 cm
• Harvest, 2023, porcelain, 28x19x14, 23x13x15, 31x10x12 cm
• Harvest, 2023, porcelain, 31x10x12 cm
• Resistance, 2022, porcelain 14x20x15 and 17x26x16 cm
• Plexus, 2022, porcelain, 17x25x14cm

Australia’s cities are vibrant and modern, and the country’s overwhelmingly urban population is diverse and hip. Yet this antipodal island’s geographic remoteness feels almost palpable – hence its nickname, The Land Down Under. Its vast, largely uninhabited interior feels omnipresent, host to a unique ecosystem that has forged a distinctive Australian spirit highly attuned to the natural environment and the inherent threats posed by climate change. These sensibilities were evident in the work of the four ceramicists whose exhibitions I had the pleasure of viewing during my brief stay in Melbourne.

Collectively, their works shared a cerebral, intentional purpose. Individually, each artist explored a different facet of the complex relationship between maker and his or her environment. To stay engaged with the climate emergency ‘without getting stuck in despair or outrage’ Canadian-born artist Claire Ellis aims to make a political impact by creating work that arouses the viewer’s curiosity.

The vessels in her Craft Victoria exhibition Triple Cooked take on the fossil fuel crisis by mimicking the scarred earth resulting from Australia’s robust mining industry. The three sentinel vessels are coil-built from clay made of reclaimed landscaping basalt which Ellis sources from quarry off-cuts and stonemasons. The same rock is broken into pieces, tumbled, and then fitted into hand-molded crevices that pockmark the surface of each vessel. Surprisingly, these bold, tactile vessels are fired in a single firing.

While working as a chef at a critically acclaimed restaurant in Melbourne, Ellis began transitioning from what went on the plate to the plate itself, creating tableware for the tasting menu in a makeshift ceramic studio within the restaurant. This shift was prompted by a need to step away from the stresses of working in the high-octane food industry. Ceramics allowed her “to slow down while still being creative and working with my hands.” In clay, she has not only found catharsis, but an outlet for her environmental activism where her experience in the kitchen has held her in good stead. “My chef experience has taught me that things take a lot of tweaking and quite a few tries before they are just right.”

Ellis goes to great lengths to keep materials out of the landfill. Nothing goes to waste – even the plastic bags that clay comes in are washed and melded and turned into beautiful onyx-like lids for her ceramic containers. Her commitment to sustainability also extends to her tableware collection which incorporates recycled materials such as eggshells and glass.

Ellis has completed a number of artist residencies and her work has been exhibited in Paris and Milan. With several awards under her belt, she was a guest speaker at The Australian Ceramics Triennale in 2022. The artist is driven to bringing awareness to the impact of traditional industrial practices on our planet. She feels a sense of personal responsibility towards her adopted country – evident in the sentiment expressed on her website’s footnote:

I acknowledge the Wurundjeri Woi-wurrung people of the Kulin Nation, the traditional owners of the land on which I work and I also acknowledge the traditional owners of the lands across the world where materials and knowledge in my practice originate. I recognize their continuous connection to Country and I pay my respects to their Elders past and present.

Individual acknowledgements recognizing the country’s original inhabitants have become common practice in Australia. As a nation, Australia is starting to come to terms with its colonial history; appreciation of First Nations’ connection to country is becoming more widespread. With her training as an arts conservator, artist Georgia Harvey has insights into how cultural objects carry the stories and ideas of their makers and she recognizes her responsibility “to preserve cultural artifacts so as to learn from the past and better understand the present.” The self-taught maker has developed her own unique style, drawing from her experiences working with cultural collections, in particular antiquities as well as her earlier studies in painting.

Since discovering her love of ceramics, Harvey has built a flourishing practice in her backyard studio, where she says she makes ‘new discoveries every day.’ The artist’s remarkably varied yet cohesive solo show Lion-ish–also at Craft Victoria–is composed of twenty-three ceramic iterations of the lion as polysemous icon. Harvey is known for exhibitions that demonstrate a convergence of styles. Viewing the totality of Harvey’s idiosyncratic lion sculptures is like taking a kaleidoscopic tour of the ancient world seen through a modern lens.

The gallery describes her show as “a playful celebration of this diversity of perspectives and realities.” Harvey describes her pieces as ‘ancientesque’, animistic, and playful but her profound knowledge of cultural and historical context is evident throughout the exhibit. The artist acknowledges that her distinct, imperfect style walks the line between ‘not too cute and not too hideous but perhaps inhabiting a slightly unsettling space in between.’

Harvey finds inspiration everywhere – medieval illuminations, archaic ceremonial vessels, sentinel statuary, heraldry, kitsch figurines. She is drawn to animal forms and honed in on the king of the jungle for her Lion-ish exhibit, fascinated by the way in which different cultures (some of which had never laid eyes on an actual lion) purloined this creature to represent often disparate symbolic significance. She references Plato’s Allegory of the Cave which questions the philosophical nature of Truth and its subjective interpretations.

Harvey is well-traveled and lived for several years in the UAE. Her lion series was inspired by multiple influences and while she plays with ideas of origin, she is conscious of poaching too literally from other cultures. Her sculptures materialize “through the prism of her hands,” each emerging as a unique character flavored with opaque cultural references and timeless beauty. During the creative process, Harvey allows herself to get lost, trusting the clay to lead her down the right path. “It’s all about the process for me,” says the artist. “I’m never too distraught when things don’t work out – I see it as an opportunity to make something else!” Harvey even imbues bottle forms with personality and believes that a successful result is one that breathes ‘a spark of life’ into her creations.

The collaborative ceramics exhibition by artists Kate Jones and Parker Lev Dupain at Oigall Projects was spread out over the gallery’s three rooms. Entitled Cubby, the exhibition centered around the concept of the container as a space that “may offer solace to one and unease to another…eliciting a sense of exploration and imagination.”

My first impression upon entering the primary gallery space housing Jones’ expressive, oversized forms was that of walking through the Australian ‘bush’, the term used to describe the Australian countryside. The hand built vertical forms, adorned with bold, painterly brushstrokes, were reminiscent of Australia’s iconic eucalyptus trees – the coloring, the rough texture, the sheer solidity of a stand of trees. There is a timelessness to Jones’ sculptural constructions, built to last a lifetime. A few of the forms were decorated with mythical imagery that evoked early Aboriginal bark paintings. Jones uses coil and slab techniques, liberally decorating her surfaces with stains, colored clays, oxides, terra sigilata and glazes, and has recently begun using staples to enhance and further draw attention to cracks.

As both the current President of The Australian Ceramics Association and Director of Australian Ceramics Triennale, Kate Jones is not only actively engaged with the Australian ceramic community but influential in forging its path and identity. In addition to her creative output, Jones engages in research, writing, curating, and teaching. She thinks deeply about all aspects of ceramics, probing the art of creation as intensely as delving into the underlying motivations behind collecting. Her articles for The Journal of Australian Ceramics provide insight into Jones’ work ethic and purpose. “I want art to stop time, to disrupt context. To take me somewhere else, or to bring me home. Art’s objects are messengers bringing us news from nowhere, missives from other ways of thinking or being. They have a capacity to convey meaning which language cannot quite grasp, and thus they expand our range of expression. As potters, we are fortunate to work in a field where the possibilities for our objects to touch others are so direct and so expansive.”

The multi-media installation devised by Jones together with her studio partner, visual artist Parker Lev Dupain, included an olfactory element in the form of a scent designed specifically for the exhibition. Parker’s ceramic oeuvre includes thrown tableware that draws on the history of ceramics in domestic contexts and experimental sculptural forms that push the limits of the material.

The third gallery space at Oigall Projects presented a collaborative installation by Jones and Dupain built upon a bed of handmade porcelain bricks of varying shapes and sizes. Upon this bleached expanse, the artists placed random figurines and small ceramic knickknacks at sparse intervals. The overall impression was once again evocative of Australia’s drought-parched interior, a feeling further enhanced by various emaciated bestial figures.

The three exhibitions revealed a refreshing Australian flavor that addressed global issues while demonstrating cutting edge practice and experimentation in the field of contemporary ceramics. Each artist expressed their global and personal concerns through careful consideration for both materiality and concept. Though the works diverged widely in technique and aesthetics, the narrative thread that defined all three shows was the dominant role that political and social principles are playing in contemporary ceramics. Only by confronting burning issues can we bring people into the debate.

Lilianne Milgrom is an artist, ceramicist, freelance writer and published author. She travels widely and loves discovering new artists. You can see her artwork on www.liliannemilgrom.com and her writings on www.liliannemilgromauthor.com. You can also find her on Instagram @liliannemilgrom

Captions

• image 1. MOTHEROCK, Claire Ellis, 2023, sink sludge, recycled glass, rock by-products, photography by Lillie Thompson
• image 2. O Vessel SLATE, Claire Ellis, 2023, sink sludge, recycled glass, slate by-products, 18x18x7cm, photography by Lillie Thompson
• image 3. ‘Climate crisis costing $16m an hour in extreme weather damage, study estimates’, Claire Ellis, 2023, recycled earthenware and second life basalt, 61 x 30cm, photography by Henry Trumble courtesy of Craft Victoria
• image 4. ‘Australian fossil fuel subsidies costing taxpayers $65 billion a year: IMF’, Claire Ellis, 2023, recycled earthenware and second life basalt, 66 x 26cm, photography by Henry Trumble courtesy of Craft Victoria
• image 5. ‘Australia needs climate trigger laws, conservation groups say after failed challenge to coalmines’, Claire Ellis, 2023, recycled earthenware and second life basalt, 63 x 35cm, photography by Henry Trumble courtesy of Craft Victoria
• image 6. Triple Cooked, Claire Ellis, 2023, recycled earthenware and second life basalt, photography by Henry Trumble courtesy of Craft Victoria
• image 7. ‘Climate crisis costing $16m an hour in extreme weather damage, study estimates’, Claire Ellis, 2023, recycled earthenware and second life basalt, 61 x 30cm, photography by Henry Trumble courtesy of Craft Victoria
• image 8. Solace n15, Claire Ellis, 2022, reclaim stoneware, recycled glass and clay bags, 10 x 17cm, photography by Annika Kafcaloudis
• image 9. Recycled plastic clay bags detail, Claire Ellis, 2022, photography by Annika Kafcaloudis
• image 10. Solace n15, Claire Ellis, 2022, reclaim stoneware, recycled glass and clay bags, 10 x 17cm, photography by Annika Kafcaloudis

Tomoya Sakai is an artist born in Aichi, Japan, in 1989. He studied ceramics at the Nagoya University of Arts and then at the Tajimi City Pottery Design and Technical Center. His ceramic works are part of collections around the world, such as the Faenza International Museum of Ceramic Art in Italy, the Gyeonggi Museum of Contemporary Ceramic Art in Korea, or the New Taipei City Yingge Ceramics Museum in Taiwan.

Tomoya’s works have been selected for significant competitions, such as the 62nd Faenza Prize in Italy, the 12th International Ceramics Competition MINO in Japan, the 10th Korean International Ceramics Biennale in Korea, and the 2020 Taiwan Ceramics Biennale, among others.

“I’ve developed a series on the theme of self-memory, other people’s memories, and the memories of time. I have turned various memories into abstract images through clay and pottery wheel techniques, and through making works, I have been thinking about myself and what surrounds me.

A person’s personality and worldview are significantly shaped by their experiences, accumulating over time as memories. Investigating these memories can provide insights into the core of what it means to be human.

I produce shapes with a pottery wheel as if meditating. By exploring the fragments of memories that have sunk into the unconscious and consciously connecting their shapes, I dismantle and reconstruct the imprinted images. Those shapes become “something that looks like something, but that may not be.” I create things that lie between unconsciousness and consciousness or abstraction and concreteness. And then, through unfixed images, I awaken my deep memories and reconsider who I am.

Understanding how different people perceive a specific image can reveal the variations in our perspectives compared to others, prompting us to reflect on our own identities. This awareness of our place within the broader social fabric helps us navigate the complexities of human society and find ways to coexist.”

Visit Tomoya Sakai’s website and Instagram page.

Featured work

SPIRIT series, 2023

Heritage series, 2021-2024

ReCollection series, 2021-2023

Connection series, 2022-2023

Tomoya Sakai: SPIRIT series, 2023

To leave the memories of mine, others, and times to future generations, I have expressed them with pottery wheel techniques and ceramics. How should I pass over the shapes of our memories far into the future? In the past, they were expressed in religious forms such as “god” and remained for generations. What is the “god” in today’s Japan? It may be seen in the present-day culture of manga, anime, or idols, which has influenced me too. Living in contemporary Japanese culture, which introduces various elements and evolves in its own way, I will create works that can be called “the guardian deity of memory” while incorporating “gods” from ancient and modern times. With the power of pottery, I will convey them to the distant future.

Captions

• SPIRIT series, 2023, installation view
• SPIRIT series KYODORA NO KAMI, 2023, stoneware, glaze, pigment, 40 x 26 x 47 cm
• SPIRIT series ROBOHA NO KAMI, 2023, stoneware, glaze, pigment
• SPIRIT series ABUKA NO KAMI, 2023, stoneware, glaze, pigment, 35 x 27 x 43 cm
• SPIRIT series AKUONI NO KAMI, 2023, stoneware, glaze, pigment, 48 x 41 x 68 cm
• SPIRIT series EBASEM NO KAMI, 2023, stoneware, glaze, pigment, 37 x 34 x 64 cm
• SPIRIT series HITODORA NO KAMI, 2023, stoneware, glaze, pigment, 40 x 30 x 42 cm
• SPIRIT series MIDORA NO KAMI, 2023, stoneware, glaze, pigment, 59 x 38 x 68 cm
• SPIRIT series NABO NO KAMI, 2023, stoneware, glaze, pigment, 31 x 24 x 40 cm
• SPIRIT series NEPOMI NO KAMI, 2023, stoneware, glaze, pigment, 34 x 24 x 46 cm
• SPIRIT series SORATO NO KAMI, 2023, stoneware, glaze, pigment, 44 x 24 x 46 cm

Tomoya Sakai: Heritage series, 2021-2024

The Heritage series is a group of works focusing on casual memories of other people. Memory is the evidence they have lived or their life itself. But their memories gradually disappear as they age and completely vanish when they die. I want to save those memories that will fade without being engraved in history.

In the ReCollection series, I have given shape to my unconscious memories using clay and a potter’s wheel. The shapes born like this have inspired viewers’ memories. In the Heritage series, I try to connect my works and viewers by applying this technique and making the memories of others three-dimensional.

I spend a lot of time listening to the memories of others and taking them in little by little. The fragments of those memories are abstracted through clay and a potter’s wheel and rebuilt to rise as three-dimensional objects. The works of memories born in this way inspire viewers’ memories, link past and present, and start to exist.

The fragments of memories baked through the rituals of firing can live for a very long time. I want to bring down the evidence that our loved ones have lived.

Captions

• Heritage series E.S 1955, 2021, stoneware, glaze, pigment, 34x13x24 cm
• Heritage series A.K 2003 Mistake, 2024, stoneware, glaze, pigment, 34x30x25 cm
• Heritage series E.S 1945, 2021, stoneware, glaze, pigment, 33x33x19 cm
• Heritage series E.S 1942 Gift, 2021, stoneware, glaze, pigment, 33x25x36 cm
• Heritage series E.S 1944 I want it., 2022, stoneware, glaze, pigment, 33x11x20 cm
• Heritage series E.S 1949 The first, 2022, stoneware, glaze, pigment, 15x15x26, 16 x 16 x 29 cm
• Heritage series E.S 1963 “Sad and angry”, 2021, stoneware, glaze, pigment, 33x20x35 cm
• Heritage series FAM 2023 Chupa chups, 2023, stoneware, glaze, pigment, 27x22x38 cm
• Heritage series H.K 2023 Trigger, 2024, stoneware, glaze, pigment, 32x11x32 cm
• Heritage series S.T 2023 I’m counting on you., 2024, stoneware, glaze, pigment, 32x29x24 cm
• Heritage series T.K 1999 Help, 2024, stoneware, glaze, pigment, 36x35x36 cm
• Heritage series T.K 1986 “SHIORI”, 2024, stoneware, glaze, pigment, 29x27x21 cm

Tomoya Sakai: ReCollection series, 2021-2023

We are exposed to endless daily information from various IT devices like the Internet and cellular phone networks. It implies that even important memories that form each person’s personality disappear, along with lots of information, into the unconscious realm.

When I throw pottery, I can separate myself from unnecessary information and concentrate on working as if I were meditating.
I create works, sorting out chaotic information and memories in my mind.

Thanks to the plasticity in clay, my works directly reflect my unconscious physical movement. Using the throwing technique and the clay material, I search for images hidden in the unconscious area and complete works, consciously reconstructing these images.

My works have multilayered images of scenes, information, animated shows, and movies I saw in the past. Everyone has these images, and I hope my works help them remember the links with their unconscious realm and bring back their important forgotten memories.

Captions

• ReCollection series “AMOYAYA”, 2022, stoneware, glaze, pigment, 20 x 30 x 24 cm
• ReCollection series “BAKIDAMATA”, 2022, stoneware, glaze, pigment, 31 x 17 x 20 cm
• ReCollection series “MOMOTEME”, 2022, stoneware, glaze, pigment, 14 x 7 x 21 c
• ReCollection series “DAMOPATOWA”, 2022, stoneware, glaze, pigment, 26 x 22 x 31 cm
• ReCollection series “AMATAPU”, 2023, stoneware, glaze, pigment, 12 x 12 x 14 cm
• ReCollection series “MOMETAME”, 2023, stoneware, glaze, pigment, 19 x 19 x 45 cm
• ReCollection series “MOTACHITO”, 2023, stoneware, glaze, pigment, 12 x 10 x 28 cm
• ReCollection series “SAGIAE”, 2022, stoneware, glaze, pigment, 9 x 9 x 21 cm
• ReCollection series “SATATO”, 2021, stoneware, glaze, pigment, 19 x 11 x 23 cm

Tomoya Sakai: Connection series, 2022-2023

The Connection series deals with current topics. As a lot of news goes around daily, it is not thought about deeply and disappears from our memories as someone else’s business. I cut out a part of the era shared by many people, as a person living in the modern age, and produce works that can be called the memory of our times. I keep our era firmly in my own memory through my production of works and have faced it many times. I want the viewers to use my works as media to remember our times and think about our complicated matters.

Captions

• Connection series, 2022-2023
• Connection series Destination, 2022, stoneware, glaze, pigment, 20 x 9 x 27 cm
• Connection series Encounter, 2022, stoneware, glaze, pigment, 20 x 8 x 22 cm”
• Connection series Island, 2023, stoneware, glaze, pigment, 24 x 16 x 24 cm
• Connection series Loss, 2022, stoneware, glaze, pigment, 30 x 10 x 25 cm
• Connection series Paradise, 2022, stoneware, glaze, pigment, 27 x 13 x 30 cm
• Connection series Protect, 2023, stoneware, glaze, pigment, 23 x 12 x 23 cm
• Connection series Regret, 2022, stoneware, glaze, pigment, 19 x 9 x 24 cm
• Connection series Silence, 2022, stoneware, glaze, pigment, 25 x 12 x 25 cm