ARTIST STATEMENT
‘Necklace of Time, 2022’ explores the concept that cultural identity is ever-evolving. Cultural identity develops when signals from the world around us are subconsciously incorporated into our identity, so we feel accepted. The artwork explores the relationship between the historic and the contemporary, through the reinterpretation of a bust of my grandfather, the link to my past. The bust has been abstracted and parts of it highlighted to form new representations on clay plates. This abstraction symbolises the dynamism of cultural identity. The past and the present are represented as beads on the necklace of time.
ARTWORK PROCESS
I chose clay as it is a perfect medium for expression of my evolved focus. It’s plasticity, when wet, made it easy to roll out and compress to form the base of the plates. It also made it easy to form the coils and pinch these onto the base to make the lips of the plates. The plates underwent an initial bisque firing, causing the clay to become much harder, but still porous enough to absorb the glazes. After applying white and blue underglazes, the plates were fired again.
