Eliza Au: 28 January 2010

Eliza Au: top: Cathedral, 2005, Anna Leonowens Gallery, Halifax; bottom: Hymn to Calamity, 2007.ceramic, steel frame and lights, overall dia. 350.5 cm; height 208.2 cm.

"Eliza Au: Transition and Cross-Pollinating: Investigating Ceramics and Other Materials"

The North–West Ceramics Foundation is pleased to announce that Eliza Au will be their featured speaker at a free public lecture on January 28, 2010, at 7:30 pm. The lecture will be held in Room 245 in the North Building of Emily Carr University of Art + Design at 1399 Johnston Street, Granville Island, Vancouver. Ms Au is the first speaker in the NWCF's new initiative to present the next generation of contemporary ceramic artists who will shape the future of the discipline.
The daughter of Hong Kong immigrants, Eliza Au was born in Richmond, British Columbia, where she currently resides. She studied at Emily Carr Institute, Rhode Island School of Design, Nova Scotia College of Art + Design and the University of Regina prior to attending the New York State College of Ceramics in Alfred, New York, where she obtained her Master's Degree in 2009. In 2005, she completed an internship in the Arts and Industry Program at the Kohler Factory in Kohler, Wisconsin, and in 2006, she was artist-in-residence for one year at the Museum of Contemporary Craft in Portland, Oregon. She has exhibited in numerous solo exhibitions including The Meditation of Order in Alfred, New York in 2009; Wreath/Wreathe at the Richmond Art Gallery and elsewhere in 2006-2007, and Hymn to Calamity, at the Contemporary Crafts Museum and Gallery in Portland in 2007. Group exhibitions include Module, at the Kelowna Art Gallery in 2009; In Progress: Alfred Graduate Ceramics Show at NCECA in Pittsburgh in 2008 and Worlds so Small in Regina in 2007.

Au works extensively with moulds to produce the large numbers of identical units required for her ambitious installations. Moulds allow her to work across media, using metal, wax, glass, paper and other materials. The intrinsic properties of these materials inform her production and extend her ceramics practice. For large-scale works or for materials requiring specific skill sets, she employs contractors to fabricate elements from her designs. She refers to the capacity of different materials to influence each other through their intrinsic properties as "cross-pollination," a concept that furthers her use of ceramics as an expressive tool for ideas. Her lecture will focus on factors affecting her informed and economical decisions regarding the use of these varied materials.
Conceptually, Au is interested in systems of symmetry, repetition and scale. She explores tessellated patterns that revolve around a central axis, a motif she identifies in both Western religious imagery including Islamic design and Gothic cathedrals, as well as Eastern forms of meditation and mandalas. She points to attributes of symmetry and repetition in the cycle of life, DNA patterns and the cosmos, with "its mathematical complexity, infinite repetitions and compositions." These concerns are clearly manifested in Hymn to Calamity, a room-sized, semi-circular structure created over a period of six months during her residency at the Contemporary Crafts Museum in Portland in 2007. The work consists of 231 slip-cast ceramic forms, a metal frame and electric lights; it creates a "sacred and sheltering" space" that envelops the viewer with a sense of calm and tranquility. Au frankly admits an interest in spiritual and personal exploration independent of any specific religious or philosophical system. Her use of ornaments and patterns drawn from a variety of contexts reflects her placement in a multicultural society comprising multiple traditions. Her complex and multi-level installations serve to "clarify, cleanse and simplify," opening up a space where peace and healing can mitigate the disorder and conflict in our lives.

Eliza Au will speak on January 28, 2010, at 7:30, at Emily Carr University, North Building, Room 245. The lecture is free and open to all. We would love to see you there!

Katrina Chaytor 12 November, 2009

Images: top: Teapot with cups and tray. Teapot and cups: stoneware, oxidation-fired. Tray: Earthenware, oxidation fired. Decoration: Repeating PC Hourglass web icons (pots) and circuitry meander (Tray); middle: Teapot with Trivet. Stoneware, oxidation-fired, Decoration: circuitry latticework pattern; left: Katrina Chaytor.

"Katrina Chaytor: ‘A Decorated Practice’”
The North-West Ceramics Foundation is pleased to announce that Katrina Chaytor will be their featured speaker at a free public lecture on November 12 at 7:30 pm. The lecture will be held in Room 245 in the North Building of Emily Carr University of Art + Design (1399 Johnston Street, Granville Island, Vancouver). The NWCF is associated with the BC Potters Guild but is an independent non-profit entity dedicated to fostering public education in the ceramic arts in Western Canada. Since May 2000, it has sponsored numerous lectures by distinguished visiting artist, critics, historians and others engaged in the broader field of ceramics.
Katrina Chaytor is a nationally and internationally known ceramic artist and educator based in Calgary, Alberta, where she has been a permanent member of the ceramics faculty at the Alberta College of Art + Design since 2001. Born and raised on the Avalon Peninsula in Newfoundland, she received her BFA from the Nova Scotia College of Art and Design in Halifax and her MFA from the New York State College of Ceramics at Alfred University, Alfred, New York. She has exhibited in numerous national and international group, two-person and solo exhibitions. She has been an invited participant for residencies in Greece, Mexico, Red Deer College, Watershed Centre for the Ceramic Arts in Maine and Medalta International Artists-in Residence in Medicine Hat. In 2007, she was one of ten Canadian ceramic artists invited to participate in a month-long residency at the Fule International Ceramics Art Museums (FLICAM) at FuPing, Shaanxi, China. She has lectured and taught workshops across Canada including at the Metchosin International Summer School of the Arts in Victoria. Chaytor has been awarded grants from the Manitoba Arts Council, the Alberta Foundation for the Arts and the Canada Council, and her work is held in public and private collections across Canada and in China.
Katrina Chaytor is best known for her hand-built functional ware including elaborate sets of stacking condiment pots and flower holders. These are constructed with the precision of an architect and decorated with the eye of a painter. Inspiration from the industrial arts is evident in the clean lines and geometrical purity of much of her work and in the flawless perfection with she completes every detail. She works with slab construction, imparting complex patterns onto her surfaces with plaster moulds and enhancing them with luminous glazes in jewel-like colours. She is dedicated to functional work, believing that “pots have an inherent and intimate connection to daily life.” She makes pots “that serve and signify; connect sensuous life with active experience; and intertwine use with beauty, necessity with pleasure.”
Much of her studio research has focused on the role of ornament as a “mediator between art and life” in contemporary culture. Chaytor has written and presented extensively on the symbolic and semantic value of ornamental motifs. She responds to decoration’s capacity to “carry information and ‘carry on’ a performance,” its ability to both delight the eye and impart meaning through visual signs. Considering the sorts of motifs that resonate in our world, she pays close attention to the design of computer codes and symbols, incorporating them into complex patterns that also reflect her love of historical ceramics. In her view, the use of digital iconography grants currency to her work, thus fulfilling one of decoration’s basic principles, and it challenges us to consider the degree to which decoration’s rich visual language reveals many of society’s values, traditions and cultural structures. She builds complex ornament through repeating patterns based on motifs inherent in our technological environment including computer keyboard icons, circuitry references and desktop symbols. Recently, the natural imagery she preferred previously has reemerged to mesh with the digital, “acknowledging our complex relationship and negotiation within the technological and natural world.” Her work encourages viewers to notice the beauty and graphic interest inherent in the industrial world and to recognize how such ornament functions in the design of our everyday environment. Chaytor’s intriguing and sensuous work makes important and relevant contributions to ceramics and to contemporary craft and art discourse.
Katrina Chaytor will be speaking in Room 245 of the North Building of Emily Carr University on November 12 at 7:30. The lecture is free and open to the public. We would love to see you there!