Throughout this assignment I have been trying to identify artists who use slab-building techniques, ideally with an urban feel, so here are my favourite three, in no particular order.
Lubna Chowdhary is a graduate of MMU and the RCA, she lives in London and her work is exhibited in the UK and internationally. She makes colourful work, often in series, in large groups for installations, or as public art. She chooses complex abstract or geometric shapes that have an architectural or industrial feel, but are abstract in nature.These are precisely glazed, often in more than one colour, her tiles in particular are beautifully coloured. When Chowdhary's work is arranged on shelves, it can give the idea of a skyline.
I am also looking at an urban area for inspiration, and trying to incorporate aspects of several buildings. Chowdhary aims to synthesise myriad sources inspirations and references (Vali 2021). At present I am focusing on form and trying to make the space as a whole, which in 2021 has a garden space at its centre, but is surrounded by buildings of different ages, and spaces where older buildings used to be, suggesting to me a vessel shape. I want to make abstract sculptural forms, incorporating colour and texture. I am testing blacks, greys and whites with some rusts and greens, focusing on glaze textures, matt, satin and shiny to show the different ages and aspects of the architecture. I think the buildings need quieter colours, although the city as a whole, when it is full of people could have a brighter palette.
Bryan Hopkins was born in Philadelphia and lives in Buffalo New York. He makes architectural pieces based on rural barns, using unglazed soft-paste porcelain fired at cone 04 - yes honestly (Hopkins 2004). His work is slab built and is textured using wood and plaster slabs. His pieces are sculptural vessels that are sometimes functional, but are often pierced or drilled. This year he has started a new challenge to use 'wild' clay that he has dug up and processed himself.
I have chosen to look at an area of the city, and its how its architecture has changed over the last 150 years. This is quite a complicated idea, and I want a more complex form to accommodate the variety and clustering of the city. Hopkins has achieved a sense of this chaos and complexity with different surface textures and shapes crammed next to each other, unified by the porcelain material and simple glaze. He has also been inspired by areas of deterioration on the barns and traces of old repairs. I like the idea of slabs of clay, patched together, as I want to convey changes of the urban landscape and purpose of the buildings over time, leaving traces of past uses on the forms. I can identify with his source of inspiration, and his use of slab building techniques.
Ken Eastman studied at Edinburgh College of Art and the RCA. His work is slab-built, and combines flowing curves with straight lines, his surfaces are coloured with multiple layers of slip and oxide. The items are essentially vessel shaped, but are extremely large and sculptural in form. Eastman is inspired by the architecture of Frank Gehry (Brown 2009).
I find the wavy slabs attractive, they look as if they were made with wet clay. I like the idea of this, there seems to be less rigidity here, less detailed perfection and more expression. Hopefully my work can become more expressive once I have found a form that suits me, as I want to be more fluid and expressive in my making. I like the subtle colour palette that he uses and that his work sometimes has a sort of layered Rothko-style colour application. I have found some glaze finishes that I would like to use, but am struggling with colour. I need to take the base glazes I like and try to add my own oxide mixes. I am also experimenting with slips and oxides at the moment.
Brown, G. (2007) ‘Actual and allusive: the vessels of Ken Eastman’, Ceramics monthly, 55.
Hopkins, B. (2014) ‘How low can you go?’, Ceramics monthly, 62(6), p. 58–
Vali, M., 2021. Code Switch. [online] Lubnachowdhary.co.uk. Available at: <https://lubnachowdhary.co.uk/biography/> [Accessed 2 August 2021].
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