DARK JUG

© copyright The Artist

DARK JUG 2001

Nicholas Rena (1963 – )

Details

Dimension
Media
WHITE EARTHENWARE, INK AND BEESWAX
Accession number
P7551

Summary

For those of us making a certain type of ceramic vessel, one of the central metaphors in such work, which is perhaps too obvious to state, is that these vessels are empty. It is a powerful metaphor — to produce a body of work about containment which is intended to remain resolutely empty. They are empty because they refer to traditions of use that are almost lost, ceremonies or rituals involving vessels, which were performed in common, such as baptism, anointment, invocation, blessing… where man and the material world fused. Perhaps these empty objects do have some function. In a world dematerialising into an antiphysical one of text and images, of speed and noise, they sit heavy and thick and still. Material trying to be as palpable as it can, reproaching a world going virtual.

Everything but … The British Council 2003