Madeleine Child & Philip Jarvis: New Work

10 December - 19 January

Child and Jarvis are well known for working with mixed media as well as ceramics. Their quirky style, experimentation with material and form and their conceptual rigour has gained them considerable attention. They have established a profile of producing work which reflects themes of colour, texture and pattern in the materials they use. In this exhibition Child and Jarvis explore new directions, using new materials including paint and fishing line.

Their delight in surfaces, colour and form have in the past disguised another side to the subjects of their attention. A slightly dark nature, a political or contentious underlying debate is explored in this new work.

Child writes - "Working with clay, the winter and Dunedin’s Gothic thing add to this (darkness). Otherwise it is a different subject but similar ways of working. I went back to studio production throwing mudpools. Badly thrown, badly glazed; that beginner throwing look which can be tricky to achieve for an old hand. My father's motto was ‘If a job's worth doing it's worth doing badly’. So I guess I’m following that. Throw in my Mother’s encouragement to do something a little bit illegal every day. Ceramics is thick with rules that should be broken.

"I like all the different states clay has and how it can be worked. That squishy to solid thing. Then back again to soft, fluid and in the kiln. There are also production techniques, to make the same but different, and quantities. But I could never make the same so this is perfect for how I work. Clay has its own thing going on and you have some control but not all."

Art New Zealand Number 140 Summer 2011/12 pages 64-65

Event listed by rhgallery

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