[rs_section_title title=”New Ceramics 3/2021 – The current issue”]

In the PROFILES section: Eight ceramic artists from Germany, Switzerland, France, UK, Italy, New Zealand, Canada. Coverage of EXHIBITIONS and EVENTS in Switzerland, Italy, Netherlands, Serbia, France, Netherlands. In the section ARTIST JOURNAL, we present Yoca Muta + P. J. Bruyniks. And we also have interviews with artists IN STUDIO as well as listings of Dates, Courses, Seminars and Markets.

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[rs_section_title title=”Extracts” class=”p-b-30″]Marta Palmieri – Italy, Aaron Scythe – New Zealand, Heidi McKenzie – Canada, Susanne Weise – Germany
Exhibitions:  Eric Veistrup – Clay Museum – Denmark, New Horizons at A.I.R. Vallauris – France, Architectural Ceramics – Seoul – Korea
Artist-Journal: Yoca Muta + PJ. Bruyniks
In Studio: Lee Jong Min – Evelyne Schoenmann[/rs_section_title]

[rs_section_text_block heading=”Marta Palmieri” btn_link_one=”url:%23||” btn_link_two=”url:%23||”]Marta Palmieri is part of a specific area of research in Italian art: sculpture in clay, continuing the work performed – not without some moments of difficulty – by many important artists over the course of the 20^th century. After Arturo Martini and the arrival of new artistic languages, above all the Informale current after the Second World War, it seemed that this area could have lost its way. But in actual fact, it was due precisely to the Informale movement, with its vast, unrestricted possibilities of expressive and linguistic experimentation, that sculpture in clay was able to renew its identity. These remarkable works include, first and foremost, sculptures by Leoncillo from 1957, embodying the heritage of seventy years of history and relevant still today: he was the first to work on the issue of colour, avoiding the use of artificial glazes and pigments. Moving on to the 1960s and ‘70s, we find Nanni Valentini, Giuseppe Spagnulo and Amilcare Rambelli, while in the 1980s there are works by Nedda Guidi, Pompeo Pianezzola and Giancarlo Sciannella. More recently, from the 1990s and 2000s, we have sculptures by Armanda Verdirame, Luigi Mainolfi, Giuseppe Pirozzi and Massimo Luccioli. These are just some of the artists who have worked on the concept of clay sculpture, giving it a new vitality. 
(Lorenzo Fiorucci)[/rs_section_text_block]

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[rs_section_text_block heading=”Aaron Scythe” btn_link_one=”url:%23||” btn_link_two=”url:%23||”]Monika Gass interviewed
Your work is outstanding – colourful and strong… very complex art pieces – but still ceramics. How did you start?
From a young age I was drawn to ceramics more than other forms of communication. I think this may not have been the case if I was born in another country with a larger variety of art forms. I really love the temple sculptures in Japan and lacquer work, perhaps that is a different journey in life I could have taken if born in Japan. But ceramics is something that I love. I feel that one can express one’s emotions in clay when it is still in its malleable state, so I think this is why I am so drawn towards working in clay and have never considered changing mediums.
I really started my ceramic life when I built my first anagama kiln. My obsession at that time was Shino. Around that time I had a chance to travel to Japan and on my second trip studied with Koie Ryoiji. I had seen Oribe in books and loved it but because at that time there was so little information about it outside of Japan and had never thought of making Oribe. When I left Koie San’s studio I moved to Mashiko as I found a production throwing job and a rental studio, also because of the Leach-Hamada relation foreigners where readily accepted into Mashiko. Within less than half a year I could support myself from the work that I had made in my spare time between my throwing job.

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[rs_section_text_block heading=”Heidi McKenzie” btn_link_one=”url:%23||” btn_link_two=”url:%23||”]Heidi McKenzie is a Canadian, and a fine-craft ceramic artist of Indo-Trinidadian and Scots-Irish descent. During the last decade, McKenzie has been producing ceramic sculptures engaged with issues concerning systemic racial inequality. Through the lens of her familial encounter with indentureship, McKenzie encircles such specifics as the duality of bi-racial descent and the global consequences of colonialism. Her visual treatise urges the white community, to which I belong, to collectively recognize embedded racial privilege, and to work towards change. In the words of the American, Theastre Gates, whom McKenzie admires, “Art and Protest are forms of political thought”.
McKenzie and I first met in 2013, in the elegant Romanian city of Cluj-Napoca, as participants in the first Cluj International Ceramic Exhibition and Symposium. Romania is progressively recovering from millennia of invasion, colonization, and in 1989 successfully rose up against the horrific Ceaucescu regime. We discovered that we share the surname of Sloan/Slone, and that our Scottish ancestors were probable participants in displacing thousands of slain Catholics in Northern Ireland, in the mid 1600s, dispersing thousands more, indentured to the Caribbean.
(Debra Sloan)[/rs_section_text_block]

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[rs_section_text_block heading=”Susanne Weise” btn_link_one=”url:%23||” btn_link_two=”url:%23||”]I must admit that when I first saw the works of Susanne Weise, I didn’t quite know what to make of them. Tilting off-center, asymmetrical in form, filled with dents and bumps, ragged rims, they could almost be perceived as beginner mistakes. “Almost” but not after viewing a larger body of her work and witnessing her development as an artist over the years. Then it becomes apparent that all the “mistakes” are indeed purposeful and this master in ceramics is in complete control of every aspect of her process.
That is to say, to the degree she chooses. Susanne’s aesthetic and approach to ceramics share much with Abstract Expression, a movement that began around 1942 in the USA, but spread throughout the world in the 1950-60s. Two of its signature artists were William de Koning and Jackson Pollock. The movement sought to elevate the emotions, while quieting the intellect in the creation of art. Spontaneity and improvisation were embraced. The artist stands before a blank canvas with as little forethought as possible, without preconceptions. The art ceases to portray any particular image nor contain meaning, it is an “expression” of pure feeling.
(James Clark)[/rs_section_text_block]

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[rs_section_text_block heading=”Erik Veistrup – The Passionate Collector” btn_link_one=”url:%23||” btn_link_two=”url:%23||”]For more than 50 years the former primary school teacher Erik Veistrup has been an avid art collector  – with a special place in his heart for ceramics. Over the years, he has donated hundreds of items to CLAY Museum of Ceramic Art Denmark. New and older donations are currently being exhibited under the title: Clay, That’s Life! Erik Veistrup’s Collection.
Erik Veistrup collects for the love of art – and entirely from his own personal taste. Throughout his life he has not only experienced a sense of purpose and great pleasure in experiencing art at exhibitions or visiting ceramicists’ workshops, he has also enthusiastically shared his passion by exhibiting his collection, inviting journalists, art associations or other art lovers to his private home, where his works have been closely crammed in the living room, in the bedrooms and in the attic.
When he began his collectorship, Erik Veistrup had already acquired a taste for the tactility of ceramic art, its many variations of form and the endless colour effects of the glazes.

(Christina Rauh Oxbøll + Henny Husum)[/rs_section_text_block]

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[rs_section_text_block heading=”Sophie Giet – New horizons at A.I.R. Vallauris” btn_link_one=”url:%23||” btn_link_two=”url:%23||”]For the Belgian ceramist Sophie Giet, the originality of an artist is based on whether or not their works are immediately recognizable by the public in relation to those of other artists. This is indeed the case for the works of Sophie.  It is difficult to remain indifferent when faced with these functional, anthropomorphic sculptures she creates, that are very expressive both in their visage and their stature. Body language is important for Sophie and when her personages are standing on their two legs, she instinctively uses the position of their arms to support her idea, which at the same time brings an aesthetic asset.
These characters represent herself, as well as each one of us: the first is funny, the second is angry, the third is sad, depending on the emotion and the message the artist wishes to convey. Her mother, a psychologist, instilled in her empathy and therefore the ability to imagine what others feel. As for the sense of humour that one senses in her works, it likely comes from the influence of her father, who taught her that when something unpleasant happens in life, it is better to laugh than to cry about it.

(Katia Flawizky)[/rs_section_text_block]

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[rs_section_text_block heading=”Korean Architectural Ceramics” btn_link_one=”url:%23||” btn_link_two=”url:%23||”]Since the birth of humanity, earth has been shaped and fired, and it enriches our living spaces. We use ceramic products both as functional objects and as construction elements. The use of such elements has led in various cultures to the development of autonomous architectural ceramics that provide an attractive living environment.
For Koreans, the house they live in is a small universe of their own that radiates their dignity. The traditional Korean living space consists of the house, an interior courtyard and a rear courtyard that are harmoniously furnished. Especially in palaces and wealthy houses, the rear courtyard is laid out like a miniature landscape. It is constructed in steps made of stones to resemble a small mountain, and the chimney (“guldduk”) for the typical Korean underfloor heating is built on it. The chimneys are not located on the roof as they are in Europe but stand outside the house. They are part of the overall aesthetic design of the courtyard.

(Yoon-Kyung Lee – Dieter Jacobs)[/rs_section_text_block]

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[rs_section_text_block heading=”Artist Journal: Yoca Muta and PJ. Bruyniks” btn_link_one=”url:%23||” btn_link_two=”url:%23||”]Yoca Muta  (Japan)
Majoring in contemporary art in the UK, Yoca Muta (born 1981) worked in a variety of media for different ideas. In her experiment with solid materials, she found Kutani ware, and went to study its painting technique at Ishikawa Prefectural Institute for Kutani Pottery. Going beyond the precise and orderly composition of the conventional Kutani ware, she focused on living creatures and legendary animals, of which the cetaceans leaping out of the ocean are impressive. 

PJ. Bruyniks   (The Netherlands)
The contemporary artist PJ. Bruyniks (born 1962) is proficient in recording human behaviours with mixed-media works. His installations exemplify a kind of visual aesthetic brought forward unexpectedly by sequences, rhythms, structures, and repetitiveness. When PJ. Bruyniks was an artist-in-residence in EKWC in 2019, he hung a pencil drawing “Micheangelo`s Pietà” on the wall in his studio and created a set of ceramic units classified into Sculptables, Connectables, Attributables, and Stackables, which are removable like Lego pieces. 

(Ting-Ju SHAO)[/rs_section_text_block]

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[rs_section_text_block heading=”In Studio with Lee Jong Min” btn_link_one=”url:%23||” btn_link_two=”url:%23||”]Lee, I always ask my guest about their educational background in ceramics. What is yours?
I graduated from the Department of Crafts, College of Fine Arts at Chung-Ang University in Anseong, South Korea. I became interested in ceramics after taking the ceramics course, one of the required subjects, and decided on ceramics as my major.

Partly the shapes of your works remind me of the prunus vases and other shapes from your Korean heritage. But the carving patterns seem very modern …
I consider my works based on the Korean ceramic tradition but they are also couched in my own distinct idioms and aesthetic senses. I was able to create and evolve new works by encountering the cultures of the times. When working on my pieces, I try to preserve and respect traditional ceramic making techniques as much as possible, but I make forays into new things through my own research and creative practice in each process of preparing materials and making pieces. For example, I have conducted research on how to reinforce solidity and colour development by completely removing iron from preexisting white porcelain clay; on how to make thick vessels by wheel throwing; on how to sculpt a thoroughly dried vessel; and on applying glazes to dense sculptures.

(Evelyne Schoenmann)[/rs_section_text_block]

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