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