NATURE FEATURES
Jonathan Keep, Jane Reumert, Heidi Hentze, Lis Biggas, Inge-Lise Koefoed
Exhibition 18 September - 25 October 2014
Nature in contemporary ceramic art.. from bowls to 3D-print in porcelain.
3D-print technology and ceramic expertise meet in this international exhibition.
Jonathan Keep from the UK shows together with Jane Reumert, Heidi Hentze, Lis Biggas og Inge-Lise Koefoed from Denmark.
Nature inspiration is a great topical theme of all times and holds an infinite number of expressions, facets and angles.
Jane Reumert refines the delicate botanical in fragile porcelain pieces, Lis Biggas takes imprint of natural phenomena and Heidi Hentze combines paper-like geometry with organic growth and decay, Inge-Lise Koefoed mixes ceramic materials with oil paint in her sculptural objects, and Jonathan Keep decodes nature in 3D-printed porcelain pieces.
The ceramic pieces mirror artistic presence, expertise and fascination in the features of nature.
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Jonathan Keep UK - www.keep-art.co.uk Technology & ceramics – transformation. Jonathan Keep exhibits 3-dimensional print in ceramic materials.
Idealistic and artistically, Keep experiments with digital transformations of various codes appearing from sounds and objects of nature.
The pieces reference our time of constant digital presence. Poetic ceramic objects created by unusual codes of natural phenomena in a sophisticated combination of technological and ceramic knowledge.
www.youtube.com/user/jkpottery
The digital ceramics inform of the new possibilities for contemporary ceramic art in dialogue with the new technology of ceramic 3D-printing.
The digital information is passed on to a studio based DIY 3D printer that he has adapted to print in clay. Layer by layer the pots are printed out – a sort of mechanical pottery coil building. After printing, the ceramic is fired and glazed in the normal way.
"From the elemental forces of earth, fire and water pottery has traditionally drawn on nature for inspiration. In using computer code to create this work, I aim to add a further layer to include the elemental natural-mathematical patterns and structures that underlie all form. The appreciation of this work illustrates just how much we are connected at a very deep level to the natural world."
ARTIST TALK - Saturday 20 September at 15-17.00 Jonathan Keep on 3D-print..
For more information and previous exhibition in the Gallery: CLICK
Jane Reumert DK Jane Reumert paints on thin porcelain bowls, light brush strokes with memories of Danish beaches, or she allows the ashes from the wood firing to deposit naturally on the structures of the surface.
She is known and admired by ceramics lovers for her eminent personal pieces.
The ceramic bowls, infinitely fragile and gentle, almost spherical, are often inspired by the patterns and colour tones from the Danish countryside, but worked for an abstraction, where lightness is transformed to the viewer, so the pieces in their fragile existence become useful signals about the nature of human.
Jane Reumert has in his career moved from modelled vessels in stoneware with precise decorations to delicate series of objects and unbelievably thin bowls in advanced porcelain types and techniques emerged from countless experiments with form, surface and ceramic firing.
Jane Reumert was educated at the Danish Arts&Crafts School ceramics 1960-1964, and has her studio and gallery in Copenhagen, 'Strandstræde Ceramics' with the colleagues Beate Andersen and Gunhild Aaberg.
She is a member of the exhibition group 'Ceramic Ways' and the International Academie de la Ceramique, IAC. - Represented in several museums from the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, Art and Design Museum in Oslo and Helsinki, the National Museum in Stockholm to Trapholt Art Museum and the Design Museum – Denmark, and has exhibited in New York, Paris, Brussels, etc..
Heidi Hentze DK Heidi Hentze experiments with porcelain and glaze in poetically folded containers, that reveal new areas for personal and adventurous sensitivity as in origami and paper cutting.
It started as material tests, the invention and challenge of ceramic techniques and materials. The fight with and against gravitation. Making things as thin as possible, - and then a bit thinner than this...
About seeing and turning 'flaws' to advantages... colouring crackle glazes, 'the leaf' that fell of, the fragility of porcelain in complete and precisely constructed geometric shapes that unfolds in the heat of firing.
It is an increasingly technical, artistic and personal development - on materials, colours and firing temperature to form, idea and personal relevance. The sensuous in geometric shapes, boxes and systems refers to space, spaciousness, abandoned rooms, an 'absent presence'. To fit in. To adapt. To make room. To challenge the material and reinvent existence.
Heidi Hentze was educated at the Glass and Ceramics School of Design - Bornholm (now: Academy School of Design) 2002-06 and has been 'Artist-in-residence' at Svanekegaarden, Bornholm and in Ecuador. Now, she has a studio on the island of Bornholm. Since 2011, receiving the Danish Arts&Crafts Bronze Award and travel grant, an award from Annie and Otto Johs. Detlefs Foundation, she has been awarded with several grants and exhibited worldwide: 'Bornholm Juried Spring Exhibition', Danish Biennial for Crafts and Design, International Biennial Korea, in the Faroe Islands, Grønbechsgaard, International Ceramic Museum - Grimmerhus, Bornholm Art Museum, Round Tower Exhibition Hall in Copenhagen, Form & Design Center, Malmö, Gallery Turf and Collect, London, and 'SOFA' Chicago ...
She is a member of ACAB (Arts & Crafts Association Bornholm).
Lis Biggas DK Lis Biggas works with the Nature's many materials in a direct, but no less sophisticated way - and for practical use.
The pieces are functional, intensively idea-based contemporary ceramics created by a dedicated craftswoman. A range of dishes, small plates and bowls have imprints of the turbot's warty skin that is pressed into the wet clay, and the rough glazes consists of clay from the local beach. Other works have crab shells, claws, fish bones and seaweed placed on the low-fired piece to which slip (liquid clay) is sprayed leaving a negative imprint on the surface. The multiple layers of colours create a depth as in watercolour painting.
The various nature objects and materials are not always clearly visible, but are revealed to the attentive observer as secret images encoded with life ideals and material knowledge. The mix of surface texture may be the close interaction between a glossy transparent glaze and a rough brown 'lava' appearing from a local clay that melts at high temperature.
Lis Biggas graduated from the Danish School of Applied Arts (Now: Academy School of Design) 1985. Selected exhibitions: 'Every thing has two sides' Sealand Group, Allerod 2013 - Biennial for Crafts and Design 2013 - 'The World on a Plate' SAK, Svendborg 2012 - Across Carlsberg New Tap 2010, Danish Ceramics Triennale, Trapholt Museum 1994; - Awards By Gertrud and Myre Vasegård's Estate 2009, the Danish Arts Foundation 2009, International Ceramic Center in Kecskemét, Hungary 2003, Town of Fredericia Art Award 1996, Herman A. Kähler 1st prize, Teapot Competition 1993 .. Commission works: the Epilepsy Hospital, Dianalund 2002, Fredericia Hostel 1996, Soppesøen Park in Copenhagen 1988, Non-Profit residential Ragnhildgade 1987…
Inge-Lise Koefoed DK"Everything is connected, life is a cycle, a balance between the large and the small, the local and the global.
All living beings interact in an overwhelming but fragile ecosystem.
The world of insects is my big inspiration - these Creepy/Crawly creatures' adventurous development metamorphosis in shapes and colour.
'Empty House' is about the abandoned cocoon shelter that has hatched a butterfly, a beetle or some other insect. And the empty house has got a bit of the hatched-out's colour."
Inge-Lise Koefoed was educated at the Danish Arts&Crafts School 1956-60, and hereafter appointed to the Royal Porcelain Factory, where her large mural commissions in white porcelain led to working in the white marble. Subsequently, the stone, metal and paper became the materials that she has mainly worked with for exhibitions in Denmark and Internationally. In between numerous assignments she has been working in clay, as for the stoneware sculptures 'Empty House' and the new work for this exhibition.
Grateful thanks to Dalhoff Larsens Fond and Danish Crafts for funding in 2014,
and to Danish Arts Foundation for funding of international transport in 2014.
