Waning
2019
As curator and participating artist in this exhibition, my primary concern was to ensure a cohesive display of two genre, whilst drawing the conversation to issues of deforestation and climate change. Each of the artists developed their body of work to resonate their independant voices on the subject using their unique techniques and interlaced their own narratives of positivity, hope and affective engagement. My work for the exhibition was an interplay of the serendipitous alchemy of wood firing and the atmospheric interaction of wood ash and soda. Combined with the material culture of the ever day functionality of domestic clay objects, it references a burnt, charred, and lonely forest scape decimated by the Anthropocene. Its perhaps a way of bringing the seemingly removed subject of climate change closer to home.
Image of Soda fired vessel-wheel thrown- 12cms high
Photography by Shonali Madapa
Waning I 2019 I Soda Fired vessels-12cms & 7cms High
Waning I 2019 I Wheel thrown soda fired cylindrical vessel- 14cms High
Waning I 2019 I Wheel thrown soda fired vessel-9cms high
Wood firing and organic functional vessel forms were my starting points.
A wood and soda firing workshop residency with illustrious artist Adil Writer in Auroville, India, gave me the opportunity to make this body of work as forms that reminisce, charred, burnt stumps of trees in a forest fire.
Soda firing introduces soda vapours into a wood kiln when it is firing at 1200 degrees centigrade, an allusion to the ferocity of nature in the intense heat of a bush fire. As the forms vitrify, the soda reacts with the clay body, treating its surface with serendipitous artistry.