In the PROFILES section: Eight ceramic artists fromItaly, India, Germany, China, Germany, France, UK, Latvia. Coverage of EXHIBITIONS and EVENTS in UK, Netherlands, Germany, Netherlands, Latvia, France, USA. In the section ARTIST JOURNAL, we present Lin Po-yu + Samantha Thole. And we also have interviews with artists IN STUDIO as well as listings of Dates, Courses, Seminars and Markets.
NEWS
PROFILES
Patrizio Bartoloni – Italy
Uday Bhangsingh – India
Doris Bank – Germany
Wan Liya – China
Olaf Stoy – Germany
Margareta Goyk-Galvan – France
Bronwyn Williams-Ellis – UK
Lïga Skarina – Latvia
EXHIBITIONS / EVENTS
“No Interdependent Origins” – Birchington-on-Sea – UK
Keramiek Triënnale 2021 – Apeldoorn – Netherlands
Experiment & Classicism – Berlin – Germany
Japanese Talent – Deventer – Netherlands
The Keramion turns 50 – Frechen – Germany
Martinsons Award 2021 – Daugavpils – Latvia
Pekka Paikkari – Le Don du Fel – France
keramik hessen e.V. – Germany
Jack Lenor Larsen – New York – USA
ARTIST JOURNAL
Steven Montgomery + Satoru Hoshino – Ting-Ju Shao – USA / Japan
IN STUDIO
Martha Pachón Rodriguez – Evelyne Schoenmann – Interview / Developing Skills
DATES / Exhibitions / Galleries / Museums
COURSES / SEMINARS / MARKETS
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PREVIEW
In the studio of sculptor Olaf Stoy, who is mainly known for his porcelain figures and busts made in the traditional slipcasting technique, freely modelled pieces are also frequently made in plastic clay bodies. With these in particular, he says, he can forgo the time consuming process of mould making, casting and luting and work more spontaneously. This ultimately means that he combines both approaches. Specifically in these figurative combinations of materials with porcelain and clay, a highly individual multidimensional correspondence is revealed through the use of differing ceramic bodies. This article presents two of his latest work.
Groundedness and Ethereality
Both in Stoy’s unique creations and his variations, the elemental earthiness of the clay enters into a relationship with porcelain – normally associated with serial production – as does the form and content with the metaphysical properties ascribed to the individual materials, with the artist making use of their contrasting aesthetic effect.
(Andrea Müller-Fincker)
Olaf Stoy
A picturesque wine village near the Wine Route in the heart of Alsace is where I live and work. I grew up in the far north of Germany, a region called Holstein Switzerland, not far from the beaches of the Baltic. The stages of my life described a wide arc through Germany until I arrived in Alsace. This is where I wanted to be creative and was able to do it.
My career as an artist began in 1998, when I had the opportunity to acquire the basics on stoneware and earthenware from Louis Bucher from Boersch. I started with throwing on the wheel but I soon discovered that that was not the world in which I could fully express my imagination. Louis’s unconventional approach allowed me the space to change from the wheel to handbuilding and modelling. After I spent a few years acquiring various skills, I wanted to leave the thick-walled vessels and relatively monotonous earthy glazes behind. I felt a need to create larger sculptures and to give them brilliant colours. Space in his studio was limited so I decided to set up my own studio.
Margareta Goyk-Galvan
“With Covid-19 there has been no tile work for months,” admits Bronwyn Williams-Ellis, who is based in Bath, UK. Her tiles can be found throughout England and Wales. For instance, she was commissioned to produce sea fish panels for the restaurant and washrooms at the 4 star Hotel Portmierion & Castell Deudraeth in Penrhyndeudraeth, North Wales. She was asked to make a series of large mounted tile panels of colourful, cheerful, flying parrots to enliven a dark corridor and lift area at Yspbyty Glan Clwyd Hospital, North Wales. At Musgrove Park Hospital, Somerset a series of her framed panels of large white swans against a glowing deep blue are in the orthopaedic recovery area. Bronwyn’s handmade clay Neolithic tiles, reflecting the history of the area, can be found in the reception at Julia’s House Children’s Hospice in Devizes, Wiltshire.
“Despite the doom and gloom, a looming exhibition and an impossibility of working at home unexpectedly produced more than 60 ceramic pieces during lockdown,” reveals Bronwyn, who had been asked to make pieces for an exhibition at the Victoria Art Gallery, Bath, to open this last July. Sadly it was postponed for two years due to the pandemic and will now tentatively open on 12 January 2022.
(Tim Saunders)
Bronwyn Williams-Ellis
Last summer, the art scene in Latvia seemed to reorient itself in two opposite directions. Some artists dove into mastering and experimenting with the possibilities of a virtual environment while others set out for the countryside. The global pandemic situation gave our society a healthy nudge about the meaning and potential of nature, which is right here next to us, but over the past few decades in Latvia has become more associated with individual holidays at family owned country properties and guest houses. We had become accustomed to emitting a sad sigh when we heard news of yet another rural school being closed due to insufficient numbers of students, and to gaze hopelessly at the empty windows of abandoned homesteads while driving along narrow country roads. However, this year especially, with the pressure of present conditions, the pull for young creative people to be closer to nature has increased noticeably. They created open workshops for themselves and friends and worked in the wild.
(Aiga Dzalbe)
Lïga Skarina
CODA Museum Apeldoorn – March to May 2021
Figurative and abstract, monumental, or small and extremely detailed. Pot shapes, sculptures and objects, shown alongside wall and floor installations. From 7 March to 30 May, CODA Museum presented Keramiek Triënnale 2021, an exhibition that CODA realises in collaboration with the Nederlandse Vakgroep Keramisten (NVK). De Keramiek Triënnale 2021 showed the work of 48 artists from the Netherlands, Belgium, Germany, Luxemburg, Ireland, England, Romania and Slovenia. The work of the selected artists guarantees a varied exhibition, with which CODA and NVK gave an overview of current contemporary ceramics in Europe. CODA Museum’s Keramiek Triënnale also included the ceramic works of Couzijn van Leeuwen and the jewellery of Judith Bloedjes. Van Leeuwen passed away in the summer of 2019 and made a name for himself with his cardboard artworks and installations. The ceramic work of Van Leeuwen, who originally trained as a sculptor, is much lesser-known but forms an important part of CODA’s The Netherlands Collection. Judith Bloedjes gaves visitors an impression of her oeuvre, method and sources of inspiration in the Poetic ceramics exhibition.
Keramiek Triënnale 2021
CODA Museum Apeldoorn, Vosselmanstraat 299, NL-7311 CL Apeldoorn, The Netherlands
www.coda-apeldoorn.nl
www.nvk-keramiek.nl
Joris Link, Bulan, 2020 stoneware, engobe, h 40 cm, Ø 40 cm
Daugavpils Mark Rothko Art Centre, Latvia
Martinsons Award 2021 is the international juried exhibition of the 3rd Latvia Ceramics Biennale, featuring artists from 38 countries.
As the nucleus and pivot of the biennale programme, the exhibition commemorates one of the most brilliant and internationally renowned Latvian ceramic artists – Peteris Martinsons (1931–2013). Daugavpils was his native city, and now it is home to a vast collection of his work. Towards the end of the year, the biennale will be followed by a truly momentous event – the opening of the Peteris Martinsons Memorial Home that will house a permanent exhibition of the artist’s work.
Martinsons Award 2021 is organised by Daugavpils Mark Rothko Art Centre in cooperation with Latvian Centre for Contemporary Ceramics.
Latvia Ceramics Biennale was instituted in 2016 and has always featured a dynamic series of events. Although it runs a little differently this year, without loud openings or vast public gatherings, the programme has retained its hallmark scale and quality. It stands a testament to the immense potential of Eastern and Northern Europe as regards contemporary ceramics and represents the ceramics domain worldwide as a field with the broadest and most incredible scope of opportunities.
(Valentins Petjko)
Impressions from the exhibition
Steven Montgomery (USA)
Steven Montgomery (1954) can be seen as one of the pioneers introducing the concept of “industry/machine” and surrealism into contemporary ceramics. A glance at his large-scale surrealist steel works leaves indelible impressions on one’s mind
“My interest in industrial imagery is almost completely aesthetic, as I have no practical experience in any of the technical fields from which my work is derived. It has been through my understanding of the ceramic medium and its inherent limitlessness that I have been able to invent my own fictitious technology to suit my sculptural needs.”
Satoru Hoshino (Japan)
Satoru Hoshino (1945) was born in Mitsuke City, Niigata. After the fault-like structure ingeniously created with ceramic slabs in the Surface Strata and Depth series, which was awarded the Minister of Education Prize in 1979, he developed the Temporary Compositions series of large installations. A sudden landslide at midnight in 1986 swept away everything in his estate with mud and rain, leaving only the four members in his family. His works after the incident are speechlessly shocking and deeply touching, representing his first encounter with the cosmos. Every slab is covered with his palm prints and traces of the force left by his palms.
(Ting-Ju SHAO)
Steven Montgomery
Satoru Hoshino
Martha, you were born and raised in Bogota. Did your career as a ceramist also start in Colombia? Please tell us about yourself.
Yes, of course. Actually, I started working with ceramics at the age of 19 in Colombia, I learned in the studios of master potters and artists. Also, after my degree in Pedagogy of Arts, I studied Fine Arts with specialization in Ceramics. My thesis in ceramic sculpture was selected for a personal exhibition in the gallery of the Banco de la Republica in the city of Neiva in Colombia, where my passion for sculpture with ceramic materials began. As well, I was a teacher of ceramics at the Faculty of Fine Arts at the Surcolombiana University in Neiva, Colombia. Later, I came to Italy to specialize in stoneware and porcelain at the Ballardini Institute in Faenza.
(Evelyne Schoenmann)
Martha Pachón Rodriguez
