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Artist Exhibitions:
Coming Soon!
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Artist Galleries:
Marshall Clarke Galleries
56Street
Delta, BC, CA
Heritage House
20477-Fraser Highway
Langley, BC, (604)530-0121...
Further Information
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Artist Reviews:
Coming Soon!
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Collections:
Coming Soon!
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Commissions:
Coming Soon!
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Artist Statement for Sharon Grove
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Born: Lethbridge, Alberta, September 19th, 1957
My current body of work reflects my journey through ceramic process and experimentation. Moving beyond the structure and security of defined forms, I find each experience builds towards the next. Ceramics is art and alchemy combined into one. There is such a vast amount of exploration to do with the medium and the processes, which affect it, that I never stop learning. This constant dialogue between the two is the basis of my continued practice.
While I am not currently making pieces of a traditional nature, I do hold a high regard for ceramics history and tradition. In a ceramics history class, it occurred to me that the way ceramics evolved through time was the same way I approach the material. I work in an intuitive manner, through a process of trial and error, being in the moment - aware enough to see small mysteries; open to accept unexpected results and learn from accumulated information and experiences. Each time, when I find an answer along the way, another question always follows.
Ceramics through out history encompasses three main methods of producing and working with the medium: hand building, wheel throwing, and slip casting (along with jiggering, and jollying which I include in the category of slip casting due to the use of molds). My current body of work is no longer restricted by the boundaries imposed by function, and has become more about the material. While I have stepped beyond conventional methods of using the medium, I am still very much a ceramic purist at heart and my work continues to be individual hand made pieces, which defy standard industrialized mass production.
Slip casting is a technique that was refined during the industrial revolution in Europe. A classic and well-known example of a company using this technique, is Wedgwood, which was founded in England in 1759 and developed the use of plaster molds and slip casting to mass produce common objects for the masses.
Wedgwood is the epitome of precise work, which is clean, exquisite, and so perfectly executed that each same-piece of the same pattern is exactly alike. That is the exact opposite of what I am trying to achieve in my work. I utilize the slip-casting process to create singular pieces, each of which has individual significance and qualities.
Boat forms are significant through out many cultures, representing life, journey and death. “According to Egyptian beliefs, the soul of the dead accompanied the sun on its eternal journey in the Upper Waters (the heavens) around the world.”(smith) (image 1), Haniwa(image 2) forms found around Japanese ancient burial sites, and Bill Reid’s, Haida Gwaii Jade Canoe(image 3) are a few examples of the significance of the form crossing cultures. “Is the tall figure who may or may not be the Spirit of Haida Gwaii leading us, for we are all in the same boat, to a sheltered beach beyond the rim of the world as he seems to be or is he lost in a dream of his own dreaming? The boat moves on, forever anchored in the same place.”(Reid) (image 3)
The porcelain slip cast boat like forms are completed with layers of textured paper clay. These slabs are created as thin as possible emphasizing the translucent quality of porcelain. Each piece becomes an experiment with process, the process of creating porcelain casting slips, paper clay, and the use of molds, along with the incorporation of hand building and some wheel thrown elements. It is my dialogue of process used with ceramic material.
Porcelain is precious and fragile.
The pieces are then soda fired to cone 9/10 set up in such a way as to allow them to further change form through the firing process.
Soda firing is process of firing which requires the artist to be involved and have a dialogue with the kiln. No two kilns are the same and it fascinates me the way I go through a process to develop an intuitive relationship with each one, very similar to the way we develop relationships with people.
During each firing this dialogue expands and the relationship becomes more comfortable and allows for more experimentation pushing the previous boundaries. Initially the forms were placed in the kiln and fired with the expectation of a finished product coming out looking like it did when it went in. The firing process has evolved into another element of the manipulation of the pieces setting them up to change form in a controlled manner during the firing and capitalizing on the strength and malleability of porcelain to change its form and not collapse. This process allows for the creation of fissures and undulations not seen prior to the firing. Each piece becomes an archive of my experience with the material, each one expanding on the past experience.
Currently my body of work stands as a metaphor for life. I find myself contemplating times in life, memories, how I am relating to events in the world, and on a more personal level -in my life. It is a paradox of strength of spirit and fragility, qualities I associate with porcelain.
Once a moment is past, it becomes only a memory, a fragmented collection we draw upon, layers of experience in our lives, and it is the documentation in our minds of our own journey. Time is something none of us can hold on to; our memories are frozen moments of time captured and held onto in our minds and hearts. I am attempting to capture the essence of these feelings in forms, which will hold them and preserve them for so long as the form remains intact.
I don’t desire to tell the viewer how to perceive my work; I want to create an atmosphere where the work can create a moment of introspection for the viewer.
Sharon’s home is on Vancouver Island, B.C., just outside the small fishing community of Sooke, the west coast is where her spirit lives and she can be quoted saying: This is a place where the land, the ocean, and the air feed your soul.
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