Relics of a dreaming…

This collection of ceramic sculpture, and sculptural painting is the sedimentation of a series of conversations. These are the relic objects and images of a “dreaming” in an aboriginal sense: the dance, the story, and the physicality inherited and accumulated as identity over a lifetime. They are the theater of the unspoken, the invisible, the masked world-- revealing more an inquisition into meaning than an answer composed. They are parts that decompose to reveal, or re-compose to create a whole. The works approach geology: not only in the vigorous process of their making, but also in the metaphor that stratified dimensions, eroded surfaces, and fractured facades suggest in the process of our individuation, the riverbed of our becoming. They are all at once archaeological, alchemical, and ancient: the repositories of memory and reliquaries of thought.

The ceramic pieces were fired in a single-chamber Japanese-style wood kiln called an anagama, built recently at Gaya Ceramic Arts Center. Typically kilns of this nature are constructed partially buried into a hillside and have the appearance of a long tunnel. They range in size, as well as length of firing (some fire up to an entire month; while our kiln fires for 3 consecutive days). Wood is the single and only fuel used to attain a temperature close to 1280C.

However, the wood acts not only as the source of temperature gain, but also the essential decorative element, as most of the ware is fired without any applied glaze whatsoever. Throughout the firing, tiny particles of wood ash float through the kiln as if on a river of flame. These particles settle thinly or densely upon the ware, depending upon the placement of a piece, and create a patina that ranges enormously in color, texture, and sheen. The flame itself also plays a role in “painting” the clay surfaces, as it searches for the most expedient path through the kiln.

The variables involved in such a firing are many and only slightly controllable. It is precisely the enormous element of chance that intrigues and bewilders and intrigues yet again. It is truly an alchemy: the serendipitous process of turning wet earth into an everlasting vessel whose sheen looks as if it had been dredged from the most ancient of shipwrecks-- a patina worthy of gold.

Similarly, the canvases remain dedicated to the creative process of layered discovery, incorporating texture built up from a deft use of oil pigments, encaustic (melted wax), and a crackled base of raw clay itself. Texture is employed in various degrees as an emphasis for the dexterous layering of color and form, until texture predominates while color drops away.

I see my artwork as a journey in which the process, the very visceral act of creating is as significant as the final outcome. It is labyrinthine in its development and I am often surprised by the intuitive level of its revelation. I am entranced by the visual traces of this journey and the slow development of a patina of color and texture, the subtle variation of simple forms, and the impact of timing, of time. To me, these layerings offer clues to the many visual references, the many voices, the many possibilities of interpretation.

For artist and nomad, Hillary Kane, the world continues to draw her out like the tide. Travel and work has led her to claim residence in several continents and innumerable countries. Inevitably, the artistic culture of each has imparted indelible influence upon her own work and continues to be an endless source of inspiration. Educated in the United States and France, she now resides in Bali, Indonesia. She focuses her creativity in both clay and paint, enjoying the dynamic of two very different mediums and their possible confluence. She has recently attended an international wood fire conference in La Borne, France, and completed a wood-fire residency in Aomori, Japan. After a year as artist-in-residence at Gaya Ceramic and Design, she is now developing workshops, courses and residencies for Gaya Ceramic Arts Center in Bali, Indonesia.

“I carry in my blood a restless life, and in my wandering, uncertain, a pilgrimage, art goes lighting my way as if it were a fantastic comet.”

(Chief Nitsuga Mangore, Brazilian drummer)