Intersecting Disciplines presents recent work of seven contemporary artists and designers, graduates of the Ceramics BA Honors course at Camberwell College of Arts, from 1978 through to 2009, from the studio ceramicist, industrial designer, commissioned public art, installation and performance artist.
23 February – 26 March 2010
OPENING Tuesday 23 February, 5.00 – 7.30pm
Camberwell Space
Camberwell College of Arts
45 - 65 Peckham Road
London SE5 8UF
www.camberwell.arts.ac.uk/camberwellspace
Opening times: Monday to Friday 9am - 8pm, Saturday 9am – 4pm
The points of „intersections‟ are numerous in terms of an awareness of craft skill, the discipline and understanding of material and process, scale, context, design and conceptual issues and are a timely reminder of the creative use of the medium of Ceramics.
Robert Dawson incorporates both ceramic historical sources and also the most recent innovative print technologies for his work. The work encompasses gallery pieces, commissioned public art works and design consultancy work. Much of Dawson‟s ceramics work involves a consideration of the nature of surface decoration - a consideration of how decoration has been used in the past – as well as reflections upon other phenomena of the ceramic surface, such as, for example, production technical flaws (i.e. unintentional), or studio pottery deliberate process crazing. He says: “I use these things to make new designs.”
His work is in numerous major UK and international museum collections and is currently on tour with the British Council in the USA and will be included in the forthcoming Jerwood Contemporary Makers exhibition in June 2010. http://www.aestheticsabotage.com/
Ikuko Iwamoto studied Ceramics in Japan and had an active professional practice before coming to the UK and says of this experience: “I have a Buddhist way of thinking, so it felt a bit strange when I saw the way people discussed art in the UK”. From her workshop in Clerkenwell she now has a highly successful practice producing mainly porcelain domestic objects, “I make exquisite cups and other objects for a bizarre tea ceremony. They suggest the everyday, the ordinary but are in fact extra – ordinary. They are the vehicle to make visible an invisible, microscopic world”.
A winner of numerous national and international awards, Ikuko Iwamoto‟s work is also featured at Ceramics Art in London February 2010. http://www.ikukoi.co.uk/
Philip Li’s multi-disciplinary fine art practice is fusion of performance, ceramics and fashion. Li‟s most recent work, ‘The Statue’ series and ‘The Commuter’ series, uses ideas of construction and composition normally associated with fashion and identity photography to challenge the assumed limitations and placement of ceramic work. Li‟s ceramics are meticulously crafted ceramic body sculptures, whose true meaning is only revealed when captured within the fleeting moment of the photograph. The objects are given new life by displacing them from their rational realm as an autonomous tactile object, and presenting them within a world fantasy and images.
Nicola Malkin uses ceramics to explore love and death, fragility and power and personal relationships; and presents her ideas as every-day objects. Playing with scale, she presents high-impact art with direct simplicity “Being small in stature, my work is absurdly large in scale. I‟d describe my work as fragile things I was never allowed to touch in shops. They are my ponderings and obsessions over everyday objects that we interact with and this has materialised into giant jewellery; enormous charm bracelets, colossal pearl necklaces, and gigantic worry beads”. Her work has been exhibited at Collect in the V&A, Origin at Somerset House and galleries across the UK and New York.
Recently awarded a Museumaker commission for the Women‟s Library and she has also been selected for the forthcoming Jerwood Contemporary Makers 2010 in June. http://www.nicolamalkin.com/
Sara Radstone‘s work deals with issues of metaphor, memory and transient qualities of shadows, hollowness and „things not quite known but suggested‟ – either by form, colour or surface. She says of her own practice, “These elemental objects act as nudges in the line of vision, obstacles on the floor, shadows lurking in corners”. A winner of several international awards, including an Arts Foundation Fellowship (1993). Her work is included in numerous major international collections, including the, Victoria and Albert Museum, Contemporary Art Society, London, Robert and Lisa Sainsbury Collection, UEA, Los Angeles County Museum Of Art, USA, Shigaraki Ceramic Cultural Park, Japan and the Museum der Kunsthandwerk, Frankfurt.
http://www.marsdenwoo.com/welcome.htm http://www.bmgallery.co.uk/radstone/radstone.htm
Bodo Sperlein is a London based designer with an international reputation within the field of luxury goods design. Initially based on porcelain design consultancy work for several leading European Porcelain companies, this is now an extensive design practice specialising in home accessories such as lighting, furniture, table / giftware and jewellery. In addition to developing his own collections, Sperlein also acts as a design consultant, undertaking projects for global clients as diverse as Swarovski, Dibbern, and Du Pont. Notable projects include the recent Re-Cyclos Magical collection for Lladró, and perfume bottles for Agent Provocateur. http://www.bodosperlein.com/
Julian Stair’s practice explores the temporal nature of pottery and its ambiguous occupation of space. Concerned with questions of functionality and site-specific installation, Julian‟s work is characterized by subtle relationship between form and material and a subdued palette of grey, red, black basalt and white porcelain‟. He has exhibited internationally over the last 30 years, with work in over 20 public collections including the Victoria & Albert Museum, British Council, American Museum of Art & Design, Hong Kong Museum of Art and the Museum Boijmans van Bueningen. Julian was awarded the European Achievement Award in 2004 by the World Crafts Council, and in 2008 the Art Fund purchased Julian‟s Monumental Jar V for Middlesbrough Institute of Modern Art from the exhibition Collect at the Victoria & Albert Museum.
He has recently written an essay on Omega pottery for the exhibition Beyond Bloomsbury: Designs of the Omega Workshops 1913-19 at the Courtauld Institute of Art, 2009. www.julianstair.com
