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view of Amélie Proulx's winning artwork Jardinet Méchanique, which combines ceramics with microprocessors to create a moving gardenscape / photo Frances Juriansz
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Some of you have been asking me about my reaction to how the
RBC Emerging Artist Awards hosted at the Gardiner Museum of Ceramic Arts turned
out, especially as my nomination Michael Flaherty did not win. The winner was Amelie Proulx and I
think she is deserving of the prize. Amelie's work caught my attention when I
read a review written by Robin Metcalfe of her solo show that featured a floor
work. It was a ceramic carpet that
moved and emitted sound.
Metcalfe's review was extremely sensitive and knowledgeable; he really
did the work a service. Anyhow, I
could tell from the review that this was a ceramic artist whom I would have to
keep on my radar. And Proulx's
work has never disappointed me since.
Maja Padrov of New Brunswick (who was one of my two picks
for HOT MUD) admires Amelie Proulx's work, which is radically different from
her own. Put in a nutshell Padrov
is "hard" and Prolux is "soft". When I asked Maja about this she said, I'm often attracted to the work that doesn't
resembles mine, there's some softness and gentleness in Amelie's garden, those
movements and sound somehow perfectly match the visual part for me...
Now, the way the Gardiner competition is structured with
experts picking the best from their region, the semi-finalists so to speak, and
the public picking the winner, quality is ensured. Every artist who makes it into the competition is already
worthy of being a winner, which is to say they are among the cream of the
crop. Anyone of them deserves the
$10,000 award.
It was no surprise that just about everyone who was in the
Gardiner competition would end up also being in the Burlington's 35th
Anniversary show, HOT MUD. And
this is a real indicator, a double blind test if you will, of who is going to
be in the "business" ten years from now. Careers are being cemented, successful careers with
reputations.
I had two thoughts provoked by these competitions and it
will be interesting to see if I believe the same things once we see how the
Schantz emerging awards at the Clay and Glass Gallery in Kitchener Waterloo
plays out. My thoughts were: One, that emerging artists today are
much stronger than they were a decade, or longer, ago. And two, those emerging artists have
much more distinctive styles compared with their predecessors. Gone is the day when emerging artists
were clones of their teachers.
Once upon a time, it would have been enough to master a
celadon glaze (for example) and to have it grace an accomplished piece of
throwing – a grand marriage of surface and form. Not any more.
Amelie Proulx's work is often in celadon and it pools magnificently on
the details of her forms. But then
there's so much more happening: other senses and ideas integrated. The result is work that is subtle,
engaging and thought provoking.
For HOT MUD, Robin Lambert had a piece that was an assemblage of
suspended porcelain tiles inscribed "just for you" and
suspended. His glaze was also
celadon. What was daring and
delicious was that he also hung a pair of scissors nearby. The bold ones among us snipped a thread
and took a tile. It was a
sculpture we were in essence being encouraged to take away. Was this an act of artist generosity or
vandalism on the part of the public?
Either way, it was a subversion of the "do not touch" maxim
and the sanctity and latent commercialism behind the production of
objects. You can't sell what you
are giving away. It stood a lot of
the ceramic world on its head.
This week my commentary in Studio magazine has also hit the
stands and subscribers' homes.
This is my rant against art-speak and how it alienates and limits the
size of our audiences. Guess what,
the cover is also celadon green.
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