I^st Ceramic Open-Air Workshop LAB ORO

Post-event exhibition

Orangery Gallery, 9^th August - 20^th September 2009

Curator: Bogusław Dobrowolski

fot. S. Brach

More photos in the gallery I Plener Ceramiczny LAB ORO

FROM EARTH AND FIRE

Ceramics is born in fire. It is a discipline combining elements and contradictions. Clay, initially malleable and soft, after baking becomes hard and resistant. Its structure changes, revealing minute color details and diversity of textures. Maybe it is this unusual transformation that has fascinated man for ages. Here, everything starting from the type of clay, leaves a personal trace of the artist who must be exceptionally aware of the consequences of his actions. There always remains the key element, that is baking, which can change works and give them a unique character, but can also highlight errors.

Undoubtedly, the people who make ceramics are ‘full of inner fire' and they met in August 2008 at the first Ceramic Open-Air Workshop LAB ORO at the Center of Polish Sculpture in Orońsko. The role of the first edition is usually to mark out directions and define the area of activities. In the case of ceramics it is extremely difficult because of the great diversity of forms, aesthetics and techniques. It was confirmed by the last year workshop which brought together five artists from various art circles and schools. Each of them has a different approach to the material, clay. All the more interesting was their confrontation and exchange of experiences. It is the opportunity of collaboration that makes an invaluable advantage of this sort of encounter.

Inaugurating the second edition, this exhibition presents works produced last year by Stanisław Brach, Aleksandra and Bogusław Dobrowolskis, Krzysztof Rozpondek and Andrzej K. Wiśniewski. The highly successful choice of participants for the first workshop is the effect of intuition of the organizer and participant, a long-standing employee of the Centre of Polish Sculpture - Bogusław Dobrowolski; the rest was achieved by artists themselves and the unquestionable genius loci.

Of the five artists, it is Andrzej K. Wiśniewski who treats the technological traditions most freely. He says he is completely detached from stability. It is visible in his art where threads of ancients cultures (Egypt, Etruscan art) interweave with elements of contemporary performance (when he carries out actions of sinking or burying works) or installations. The creative experiments of the artist contributed to a combination of ceramics and graphic art. Drawing from both of these domains is noticeable even at the level of material. Because apart from the traditional material, Wiśniewski successfully uses combinations of paper with clay- i.e. paper-clay. Strengthened by a mesh of plant fiber this structure allows for creation of delicate, lighter forms with thinner walls. Such are Wiśniewski's figures - unreal figures, shown in motion, entwined with each other and frozen in their postures for a moment. The concrete ceramic vessels that accompany the elusive figures, are covered by the artist with a subtle drawing and meticulous calligraphy. The motifs of handwriting do not have the form of ornamentation and are not only a decoration. It seems that writing results from the organic need to fill the surface with emotion, experience, thought and reflection. A delicate sketch is often contrasted with strong colors with which Wiśniewski highlights certain fragments. Color applied in a seemingly random way, tightly covers groups of figures. At times, connected with the rough surface it brings to mind layers of volcanic dust, which covers everything in the same way, melting together objects and people. This association causes that the artist's activity has some features of archeology. It is as if  an attempt to save the traces of past cultures, and at the same time agreement for the destructive work of time.

Stanisław Brach, author of ceramic pictures, also combines diverse artistic techniques. While in these compositions the artist uses texture and color in an extremely expressive way, in the ceramic sculptures which the artist presented in Orońsko, we are dealing with a reduction of means of expression. Brach creates here a vision of man. It has compact, synthetic form with lowered, strongly emphasized head and geometric facial features. Brach builds his story from these anonymous figures. He arranges figures into larger groups, and between them develops a silent dialogue, or he puts them in rows where they are marching one after another.  All are bent down, stern, pensive. Despite their small size they make an impression of being monumental. They remain immovable in time. It is a vision of man cleared of all contexts. It happens that sometimes the artist introduces an open-work ceramic frame (in one of the works it takes the form of a skull). In this way he is making a sort of scaffolding of a man. Through a visually attractive form, he is trying to describe the structure, divides him into separate spaces, analyzes. He is covering a distance, as he is saying understood as a wandering around the human inner soul.

It is also man that is indirectly the main character of Bogusław Dobrowolski's art. The artist's works are characterized by both terse form and courageous color solutions. Shape and color co-exist in his sculptures creating a complementary entity. One cannot exist without the other. Color finds its justification in the form. Dobrowolski hesitates between a human shape and a regular form of a vessel. Maybe that is why the eye of the sculpture She is hollowed in the shape of a handle to hold a cup, and The Vase has got a human profile. The work Carrousel also has a motif of a simplified face outline, which multiplied becomes a rhythmical ornamentation at the edge of the vessel. We can say that regardless what shape the ceramic artist chooses, his works are extremely expressive. Reduction of all superfluous details and far-reaching synthesis, cause that the forms are clear and evoke in viewers a pleasant feeling of order and harmony.

It is particularly noticeable in the latest compositions made from square ceramic tiles which are glazed. Arranged together they constitute a whole which makes a story of color, temperature and place. In these incredibly simple works Dobrowolski fathoms the capacities of the material. It seems that Compositions may have their multiplied continuation; they are a visual code which can be used to describe not only the capacities of ceramics. Rhythm, change, succession are all components of our existence.

A similar fascination with the richness of colors is also to be seen in Aleksandra Dobrowolska's works. Yet, her works are more poetic and personal, at moments narrative. They express an individual experience of the world as a whole composed of contradictions. Motifs drawn from reality - landscape, feminine shape, plant forms - are all processed in her own individual way. She focuses on operating with texture and color. Very frequently, she uses a contrast between a spare surface of her works and a rich form of their interior. Two of the projects created during the workshop have a common title Washed Ashore. In both, a woman's figure was reduced in such a way that it resembles the organic shape of a shell or coral reef. The polished surface of one of them makes the impression of being homogeneous and untouched. Yet, after you have had a good look you can notice numerous scratches and delicate network of cracks highlighting the bulging curves. The interior is completely different - it is massive and heavy, it consists of tightly arranged coils of clay with rough, uneven edges.

What connects all ceramic artists is, almost primitive in its simplicity, feeling of  physicality of the material. Arousing the senses, the moistness of clay, its malleability, yielding to molding, together with the awareness that it comes from the earth, all refer to the origins of our existence. The feeling of commune with organic forms also appears in contact with Krzysztof Rozpondek's sculptures. It seems that among the presented artists, he achieves the most radical synthesis. He creates works extremely simple in shape, while whatever is significant happens on their surface. Rough, inconspicuous texture of chamotte clay, after a careful examination reveals the richness of sophisticated color shades. Most of them are a work of nature, and the artist creates a form which will display them most fully. These could be plain geometric quadrilaterals or oval and smooth objects borrowed from the organic world. Rozpondek deliberately does not embellish his sculptures; he is basing on the natural characteristics of the material. He delicately interferes into its structure through a selection of glaze or the work of fire. Any visual effects become tamed by the disciplined shape of the sculptures. The minimalism of Rozpondek's art refers to universal notions such as: harmony, beauty and proportions. The objects formed with great precision and consciousness of the material are both noble and severe. The artist is not interested in functional forms but in ceramics as such, in the struggle with the material and the mass.

The projects created during the LAB ORO workshop are a result of the participants' individual experiences as well as their common stay in Orońsko, conversations, discussions and mutual inspirations. They are the more valuable because they convey the truth of the encounter of people who are connected by a shared passion. Each of the works has a different character; the choice of material, technique and color tell us something about the person who has made that selection. The invited artists are mature creators, who yet are open to the enriching exchange of experiences. They share the belief in art as a dynamic process. In this approach, a great value is attached to the way of reaching the goal, the failures that accompany it, changes and overcoming difficulties. On the other hand, what also matters is the feeling of unity with all those people  who for hundreds of years have been repeating the same sequence of movements while molding clay and preparing it for firing. In spite of the fact that technologies keep changing, what remains is the common simplicity of gestures which allows for communication between people dealing with the ‘art of fire' - with ceramics.

Anna Szary-Cioczek

category: Exhibitions, added: 2009-11-06 09:55:14