Clare Flatley

Weird Matter is an installation of work that explores the mysterious and strange forms and textures that can occur through the activity of firing ceramic and glass materials.  

I am interested in the multitude of transformations the different materials can go through in the firing process physically but also in the symbolic and metaphysical associations these processes and materials have. My dissertation research drew on the philosophies of the Alchemists, as developing their own personal psychology and understanding of the universe through the technical mastery of physical materials. 

Just as the alchemists drew on the nature of materials to better understand themselves and world around them, I have used processes of transformation in ceramics and glass to explore my own material sensibility and representations of growth, decay, applied structures and primordial chaos.