Introduction | Artworks | Interviews | Bibliography

FRAGMENTED FIGURE
Account of the Scholarly Exhibition at the Centre of Ceramic Studies, Cardiff

Interview Methodology

Interviews conducted with each contributing artists, provided the researchers with the opportunity to explore a number of key aspects of their practice; the particular ways they engage with the figure in ceramics and develop and articulate their ideas through their artwork. By focussing upon notions of fragmentation, albeit not necessarily the principal subject of the artist’s work, a common theme could be examined in some depth from a variety of perspectives, and achieve a breadth of interpretation without becoming lost in a more general discussion of the figure in art.

Major attention was given to developing an effective structure for the interviews, drawing heavily upon the experience of members of the curatorial team who prior to the project, had developed a range of methods more relevant to the documenting and analysing of artists practice. Interviewing the artists in their studios was crucially important, creating a more comfortable environment and enabling them to make direct reference to examples of their creative work when responding to the questions posed. Questions were also framed in a ways designed to track the artists’ developmental process, to identify key factors, which may influence or impact upon the individual’s practice; and where possible, situate their ideas and practice in a wider context. This enabled a differing of emphasis for each artist dependent on which area most benefited from discussion, for example, in Martini’s work, the process of construction is significant in our understanding of the body exposed to a harsh industrial environment, and in Claire Curneen’s work, the development of ideas more significant in understanding the move from fragile porcelain figures to the martyred St Sebastian. Care was taken to use the same “open questions” with all artists, in the same sequence, providing consistency in the documentation and allowing opportunity for comparison. All participating artists received the list of question in advance of the interview.

As was expected there was significant differences in the ways the artists performed. Few had been formally interviewed before or were less used to discussing the essence of their artistic subject (a more common route in ceramics, is to record biographical, historical or technical accounts of artists’ practice). Nevertheless, all of the artists were able to speak about the process and development of ideas, although some without reference to notions of fragmentation. A fuller evaluation of the interviewing method will be posted on the website at a later date. In the meantime, it is sufficient to report here that the interviews have generated such new insights and understandings of key significance, that a further round of interviews with the same artists are planned.

The following clips are intended to be accessible on as wide a range of computers as possible. As a result, clips are kept to approx. 2 minutes. They are designed to download quickly rather than appear at high resolution. A fuller edited version is accessible by contacting: fragmentedfigure@uwic.ac.uk

Interview samples

Claire Curneen

Jill Bryars

Natasha Mayo

Frances Woodley

Babette Martini

Christie Brown

Sabine Heller


Claire Curneen Interview on April 2005 File sizes: Small MP4 movie 7.1MB Large MP4 movie 15.2MB		In this extract, Claire Curneen describes the underlying subject of her ceramic figures, their evolving themes and influences, which are inextricably linked to notions of fragmentation. She continues to explain the process by which she develops her work, from sketchbooks to consideration of construction methods and ceramic materials and their relation to this subject matter. With the figurative work, the works in the studio, some of the works with the trees, they move on from that signature piece of the white standing figure which is something I suppose I’m more known for in 97/98, and there still very much about a similar thing, about the same thing, they have a vulnerability, their about a fragile nature but they are less autobiographical, they are less about me so much! I think that through working with the figure and the referencing material which has arisen over 99/2000 which is specific of the Pierro della Francesca and the Serano images, is the nature of the subject matter and that connection to what is happening, what event is being portrayed, which at the same time has very much a universal language, a universal nature. But in terms of the content of what I’m exploring, things like the St Sebastian figure, which is a figure which is quite well known, I use that to play with ideas of the body, about the flesh as opposed to just the skin of it, how the arrow hits the surface and the time involved in terms of how the gold trickles down the surface, it relates to a time element when the arrow hits. I’m just very drawn to the narrative and the story so I use that as a way to translate ideas about the human condition, about life/death, about connections to our questions on mortality, and issues that are too much to deal with sometimes, but I have this urge to be drawn to them



Jill Bryars Interview on March 2005 File sizes: Small MP4 movie 4.01MB Large MP4 movie 9.97MB		Jill Bryers here interprets the notion of fragmentation in relation to her practice. In the interview, she continues to describe her ceramic figures and in particular, their sense of an emerging form influenced by children’s drawings, illustrations, their simplicity and anthropomorphic properties. The fragmentation of the figure in how I interpret this is more to do with what is missing and there is certain crudeness to making a figure perfect and actually rendering and producing and presenting a complete figure, which would be too obvious and it would be lacking in anything meaningful to me. Though having said that, there is something quite neat and tidy and nice and straight forward and something that appeals to me when I can actually represent and produce and make a part of the figure or represent the head or arm and that to me is very pleasing but to actually put them together to make something perfect is just slightly pointless. This probably makes is sound faintly ridiculous in describing that because I’m doing it but putting too much information for the viewer or representing it too fully is not the point, I'm more interested in what is missing. And also there are things that you can do that are more powerful, and more interesting for me. I don’t want to just make the figure and there it is, I what to show, to express a little more.



Natasha Mayo Interview on May 2005 File sizes: Small MP4 movie 4.74MB Large MP4 movie 10.73MB		In this extract, Mayo describes her consideration of skin as being innately fragmented. She continues to describe the ways in which she has articulated these ideas in ceramic, in particular, the relationship between two and three dimensions and how illusion of depth rendered onto a figurative form impacts upon our experience of flesh and skin. I think the notion of fragmentation is a concern for me as a practitioner in two different ways. Firstly, my consideration of skin is not as a wholly encompassing, impermeable layer of the body but rather a membrane through which we emit and are exposed to the environment and absorb. Its fragmented in the sense that the surface of our body is a relationship between the inside and the outside rather than one whole separated thing against another, its more of a dialectic between those two things. And I think that is a significant part of fragmentation, this negotiation between whole and part, its not often black and white but a dialogue, a relationship between those two things. The second element is perception, the means by which we perceive certain qualities. My interest lies in the expression of flesh and skin, in order to evoke the very particular qualities of flesh, I need to exaggerate them, amplify them on the body in such a way that the succession of stages by which we might ordinarily experience the body flushing, the body stretching, shivering is frozen, so its focussing on that particular sensation and no other. So there is a fragmentation in the process by which we experience these works.



Frances Woodley Interview on Feb 2005 File sizes: Small MP4 movie 4.01MB Large MP4 movie 9.97MB		As the interview continues, using examples of her ceramics as illustration, Woodley further describes ways in which she has negotiated aspects of the human form and a sense of the ‘other’, from the unconscious mind to the traversing of realities. Footage includes explanation of how she has been interested in, and influenced by, Northern European painting, Surrealism and, most recently, passages in Rosalind Krauss’ ‘Bachelors’. …so it was already truncated. To then cut it up, you start to make fragments but the re-composing of those fragments then started to work so that this side was of this world; it is vertical and so therefore it becomes assertive, and this part looks away and then maybe, I didn’t realize this at the time but I am beginning to realize it now, that this may subscribe more to the sense of the abject or at least not of this world, or the other. So maybe the portrait, the self and the other comes out of this one. But this is very much an exercise, its not producing a piece of work for an exhibition, this is in a sense investigating and resolving ideas.



Babette Martini Interview on March 2005 File sizes: Small MP4 movie 5.15MB Large MP4 movie 11.13MB		This extract follows Babette Martini’s explanation of the wider context and specific concerns of her practice. It is taken from footage recording her particular process of construction accompanied by her description of its significance to the expression of the work. …these are different hands I made earlier. The hands need to dry another night so I can dip them into the plaster clay mix that I’m mixing right now. Its white casting slip I use with pottery plaster and I also add this time 10% syenite to alter the consistency of the coating and all this needs to be well mixed. I hold onto the little handle inside of the hand and dip it into the plaster and after the emersion it needs to be rested. Here, these are nails hammered to a board and they have little clay balls on top, if I would rest the hand immediately on top of the table surface it would stick to it and it would be very difficult to remove. The hands are immersed several times into the plaster clay mix but not all have the same amount of layering, the more I immerse the hand into the plaster the more it will loose its definition and also the nails leave a different impact and contribute to the expression of the hand. In contrast with the other footage the clips of Sabine Heller and Christie Brown do not include interviews. Their significance lies in documenting the ways in which evidence of the process of construction left behind on the surface of the figure can be considered as contributing to its expressive value, specifically to notions of fragmentation.



Christie Brown Footage taken 2003 File sizes: Small MP4 movie 2.03MB Large MP4 movie 5.87MB		This footage documents Christie brown in her studio constructing the piece Ex Voto-Insignificance 2003.



Sabine Heller Footage taken 2004 File sizes: Small MP4 movie 1.69MB Large MP4 movie 4.60MB		This footage documents Sabine Heller in her studio.