Taken from "Ceramics: Art and Perception" No. 53/2003
Established in 1995 by
Douwe Ouderkerken and his
son, Marten, the St. Joseph
Gallery in the Netherlands
specialises in contemporary
ceramics, glass and sculpture,
and organises solo and group
exhibitions on a regular
basis.
Theme exhibitions of an
international scale and
scope such as White Porcelain
- 2003 is a major undertaking
for any commercial gallery.
A number of the participants
of White Porcelain - 2003
are well known within the
international field of ceramics
and also there are newer
artists in the show who
work in the medium. It is
the combination of both
established and emerging
artists working in porcelain
that makes this exhibition
such a showcase for the
many paradoxes of the medium
and exhibited by their makers.
...The extremes of the apparent 'wet' fluidity of porcelain
are given artistic expression in the work of Paula Bastiaansen.
Bastiaansen's pieces are carefully conceived initially as concept drawings that then proceed to
paper models before she produces the final pieces in fine ribs of clay. That she needs to know
exactly what she is doing at the time of their manufacture is apparent when it is understood that
she has only minutes before the material dries out and can no longer be formed.
Bastiaansen is ambivalent as to the final meaning of her work, being more involved in attaining
translucency as an ultimate end - thus the works remain untitled, leaving their interpretation
to others. The speed with which she has to work does not suggest the mediative state of mind that
so enthrals other makers - these pieces are prickly, with an agitated sense of menace. Their spiky
tendrils appear coldly frozen, cast within a fast flowing stream – or arrested mid-air in
frenzied dragon-winged flight. Despite their prickly demeanour and a certain physical toughness,
these pieces appear fragile and vulnerable.
The importance of particle size within a porcelain body is crucial to understanding not only its
sense of (false) plasticity, its translucency after vitrification and the sound of it when struck,
it also highlights another paradox - that of fragility. While translucency can allude to an apparent
fragility, the nature of vitrified porcelain is, in actuality, one of toughness and permanence...
The exhibition White Porcelain
- 2003 will be shown at
St. Josephs' Gallery, Leeuwarden,
during November/December
2003.