My research into the visual and aesthetic qualities of ceramic glaze investigates its ability to create an impression of depth. In the first part of my MPhil I gained a technical understanding of the ‘fish scale’ glaze and the way it can create a sense of perspectival depth through cracks in the glaze superimposed on one another. To test the ability of the glaze to provoke the illusion of spatial depth I developed a body of work of enclosed ceramic objects. It became apparent, however, that perspectival depth alone can not fully account for my artistic concerns, and that the requirements of the illusory are at odds with some of my major artistic preoccupations such as an interest for accidents and imprecision in material rendering. Other types of glaze I have investigated include mutton-fat celadons, which are blurry, unclear, with a cloudy translucence that takes the eye into and beyond the surface. While these glazes also provoke an impression of depth, this is not perspectival and I raised the hypothesis of a poetic dimension of depth, posing the research question of this project:
“What is poetic depth in a ceramic glaze?”
Traditionally, research into glazes focuses on aspects of material science, craftsmanship or archeology or art history, and optical depth has been the object of investigations on the microstructure of glaze. By seeking to address the aesthetic dimension of glaze I am moving away from such concerns. While the aesthetics of ceramic glaze is a new field of research with little existing material, Gaston Bachelard's writings on the poetics of the natural elements and on the poetics of space and the British Independent Tradition of object relation theory provide important insights. I am also seeking to find parallels with practice, theories and research from the field of poetry, even though by poetic I am referring to a quality that is not mediated only by language and goes beyond the field of literature.
To address those issues, my methodology consists of three main but interwoven strands that will establish a structure for discussion:
- Individual artistic practice in the studio, where I tackle technical and aesthetic issues of glaze and raise the central question of the form and its relation to glaze.
- Individual reflexive and critical appraisal of the work through literature research that will inform the work theoretically. My writing consists in a dialogue between theory and studio-practice but it does not lead the work becoming an illustration of ideas.
- Collaborative investigations into the research question as both a method and an outcome of the project. I am developing an interdisciplinary forum that involves interviews, discussions and joint projects within the artistic and scientific community as a tool to generate and test hypotheses and ideas collaboratively, and also as a way of fostering wider discussion and dissemination.
The three strands intertwine, cross-fertilize and develop in parallel to help articulate the concepts and the artistic vocabulary through which the poetic can become an operative category of aesthetics and artistic practice, and of research process.