White Gold

18 January - 8 March 2006

'White Gold' is an exhibition of porcelain curated by one of Britain's leading ceramicist, Felicity Aylieff.

The exhibition will be a personal selection, a reflection and focus on international, innovatory and contemporary approaches to 'Porcelain', with the intention to contrast a cultural approach,
and highlight variation in making and thinking.

Two of the artists in the exhibition, Fuku Fukumoto and Masamichi Yoshikawa live and work in Japan and have international recognition for their works in porcelain. Exhibiting alongside will be Felicity Aylieff from the UK and Linda Sormin, Canada, showing their first responses and individual experimentation in porcelain, a material that neither has worked in previously.

For Aylieff, the main focus will be work resulting from a period of research this summer in Jingdezhen, the 'porcelain city' in The People's Republic of China. It will mark the return to the vessel as a vehicle for her expression and a move into new territory with both the material, porcelain, and glaze as surface resolution. Jingdezhen, a crazy place full of energy, optimism and opportunity, provided the ideal environment for Felicity to explore and experiment. Felicity's familiar approaches to thinking and making have been reversed. Large, dimpled vessel forms have taken the place of polished sculptures. Pieces are hand built, without the use of any tools; the clay pinched, stretched and clawed, to create richly textured surfaces. And
glazes, never before part of her vocabulary, are the watery blues and greens of celadon glaze, synonymous to porcelain.

Fuku Fukumoto's expression arises from a concern with the material, technique, and process. Discovery through the directness of the throwing process and improvisation are her two major concerns. " I don't force my own idea on the clay. Instead the form arises through interplay of  actions and reactions between the clay and myself. An accumulation of emotion is recorded in the clay through working directly with the form".

For Masamichi Yosahikawa, one of leading Japanese artists, the act of creation in porcelain is an act of a prayer( in spite of the technical and scientific requirements). "Throughout history, in literature, music, and philosophy, humanity has sought new ways to deepen the joy of living. Through my art I strive to portray this eternal welling up of life in clear, transparent forms".

Masamichi Yosahikawa

Linda Sormin engages a repertoire of ceramic processes to enact situations that involve chance, desire, risk, failure and wishful thinking. From wheel-throwing to slab-building, from press-moulding to pinching, each activity generates its own language. The rhetoric of handcrafting informs the "narrative" of her abstraction. Thrown and altered forms burrow into hand-built lattice structures; pinched coils link together and colonize a slip cast object; found shards are thrust into press moulded slabs. Her physical and conceptual handling of material is a foil to virtuosity and an attempt to disrupt the "sensible" or preconceived approach to ceramic process.