These latest ceramic pieces are inspired by my fascination for the elements- Wind, water, fire… I am a huge fan of Chinese healing medicine, taoism and the shamanic practice of ancient China. They share the same principles. That are the foundation in Chinese medicine namely the Five elements system:
Wood, connected with growing, Spring season.
Fires , activity, Summer season.
Metal, decline, Autumn season .
Water, the culmination of process, life and death, Winter season.
Earth, that point in the middle where there is transition and a carefully mediated balance that controls it, Solstices and Equinoxes season.
They emphasise harmony with nature as a necessary value of living and ritual celebrations.
Using imagery and symbolism the Five Elements linked physical ailments with emotions, behaviours, with weather, colour, sound , time space and more.
This language is very fascinating and powerful because it is not scientific, but a symbolic language that evokes images rather than single events or anatomical parts.
For example, the climate associated with wood is wind.” Wind express wood’s energies in the grand drama of the cosmos. It’s movement and direction play out the tension between firmness and flexibility- In the language of weather wind brings change.” ( Woods becomes water, introduction)
It can be channelled and become a tool to enhance creative energies but also can bring chaos and destruction.
I love the work of comic graphic artist Lorenzo Mattiotti . Recently I read a very beautiful writing in Italian about his work.
Mattiotti succeeded in the difficult attempt to bring elements such the contemplation, the wind, the moving of clouds, the colour in comic form. The work evokes shamanic experiences, describes small things and an inclination to look at the most fragile humans.
Mattiotti loved the poet Herri Michaux. Especially the character PLUME ( piuma) . Plume ( feather) suggests the lightness and the weak capacity to resist of whose is always at the mercy of the events. But also a feather can be perceived as a gift from the sky, the sea and the trees. Feather arrives unexpectedly, they open for a moment, a split in the unknown.
I find that both the Chines medicine and Mattiotti ’s work bring to life a poetic, imaginative language with its own rhythm, power and infinite interpretations. In my work, like in Mattiotti’s work, is challenging to describe the elements like the wind, the sound of the moving clouds or feathers, using clay. It seems to be a very delicate equilibrium between form, decoration and colour.
Title “ piume con fori” Hand built stoneware piece
Title “ Piuma e acqua” Hand built stoneware piece
Title “ piuma e acqua” double sided
Title “ the wind in their hair” Hand built stoneware piece