Sandy Lockwood: Unearthed Elements

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SANDY LOCKWOOD UNEARTHED ELEMENTS October 5 - 26, 2019 Opening Reception: Oct. 5, 3-5 pm Artist Talk: Oct. 6, 2 pm LACOSTE/KEANE GALLERY 25 Main St. Concord, MA 01742 978 369 0278 info@lacostekeane.com

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SANDY LO C KWO O D ARTIST STATEMENT

My work arises from direct physical interaction with the material qualities of clay expressing the forces and flows of nature. A necessity of making like this is to enter a dance or conversation with clay where its material qualities make a significant contribution to the process and outcome.

There is a kind of thinking and knowing that is done by the body that cannot be articulated in words. The pieces here are a telling of the journey of my material exploration. It is told using the language of making from the inside, expressed in a visual vocabulary.

The resulting work captures the energy and motion of the natural environment. It also tells of weathering and erosion of natural and ancient structures and artefacts.

BIO

Sandy Lockwood has been working with clay, wood-firing and salt-glazing since 1980. Her ceramic works have been widely exhibited and are represented in public and private collections in Australia, UK, USA, Europe, Korea, China and Japan. Her work has been published in journals and books and she has been a presenter at many conferences internationally. She holds a PhD and is currently a lecturer at the National Art School, Sydney.

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Sandy Lockwood: Unearthed Elements Essay by Jack Troy

“Whatever put elegance in language, that’s happening here.”

Rumi, What Was Said to the Rose, Poets. Org.

Sandy Lockwood is articulate and poetic with clay. Her preference for wood fired salt glaze shows she is staging intention with happenstance, in the theater of her kiln. She composes clay bodies with material savvy - some so highly textured as to resemble plastic sand, others vitreous as translucent porcelain – all expand her working vocabulary. Much of her functional work features clays with butterscotch tonality alternating with freckling from flame and ash rearranging iron particles in a mad eutectic dance at high heat.

Unearthed Elements, her first solo exhibition at Lacoste Keane Gallery, October 5 – 26, 2019 transcends “craft,” by engaging us in wonderment about how the pieces came to be; they seem to have been un-made from something else rather than constructed, putting us in mind of Chinese “scholars stones,” those visually magnetic geological artifacts pirated from their sources. “Unearthed Elements” rewards long and practiced looking – needing to be touched to be believed. ”Meshwork Fragment Wall Piece 1,” could be a study for a work big enough to dwarf a human being. “Unearthed 4” reminds us of the Mendocino coast, Vietnamese karst formations, or Druidic stone placements at Dartmoor. “Temporal Melt” (Quern Series)” creates with celadon glaze the appearance of ice at ambient temperature.

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Two of Lockwood’s signature “Unstan Bowls” contrast pinched, horizon-like rims with plate-like bases, giving the forms just enough lift to cast a shadow where the seen and unseen merge. These bowls contrast with Lockwood’s pensive, curiosity-driven approach to “letting clay be clay” so indicative of our time, as seen in the work of Stephen De Staebler, Claudi Casonovas and Tim Rowan - a perspective that subverts chest-thumping “me-ness” to aesthetic outcomes characterized by humility, and respect bordering on reverence, for material and process.

Born in England, Sandy Lockwood harbors a fascination with Neolithic cultures and artifacts whose usefulness outlived their makers. For her, the work weathering has an allure all its own and is a fit subject for poetry: Dumb as old medallions to the thumb….A poem should be equal to: Not true. Archibald MacLeish from Ars Poetica. These words apply to her pieces that, though freshly fired, appear to have lost their current-ness; to have been recovered from psychic sources rather than “made.” Hamada characterized such work like this: People use the words ‘to create’ very readily, but I don’t like to use them very often…My wares, are not made but born. If you can’t give birth to the thing then you can’t call it creation. Shoji Hamada, A Potters Way and Work by Susan Peterson 1974: 189-192

Sandy Lockwood’s current work would have undoubtedly perplexed her twenty years ago, had she been able to glimpse Unearthed Elements at Lacoste Keane. Such are the fruits of incremental learning when the conscious and subconscious work in tandem.

-edited by Lacoste Keane Gallery

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S a ndy Loc kwood Unearthed 5 , 2 019 Sto newa re, I nc l us i o ns a nd s l i p 9.5 x 13 .5 x 3 .5 i n

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S a ndy Loc kwood Unearthed 6 , 2 019 Sto newa re, I nc l us i o ns a nd s l i p 9.2 5 x 11.5 x 3 i n

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S a ndy Loc kwood Unearthed 10 , 2 019 Po rcel a i n, i nc l us i o ns a nd g l a ze 8 .5 x 8 x 3 i n

S a ndy Loc kwood Unearthed 9 , 2 019 Po rcel a i n, i nc l us i o ns a nd g l a ze 7.5 x 8 x 3 i n

S a ndy Loc kwood Unearthed 7 , 2 019 Po rcel a i n, i nc l us i o ns a nd g l a ze 8 x 9 x 3 in

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S a ndy Loc kwood Unearthed 8 , 2 019 Po rcel a i n, i nc l us i o ns a nd g l a ze 10 x 14 x 2 .5 i n

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Sa n d y Lo c kwo o d Unearthed 4 , 2 01 9 Stonewa re, I nclu sions an d slip 8. 5 x 11 . 5 x 3 .5 in

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Sa n d y Lo c kwo o d Unearthed 2 , 2 01 9 Stonewa re, I nclu sions an d slip 6. 5 x 10 x 2 . 5 in

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Sa n d y Lo c kwo o d Unearthed 1 , 2 01 9 Stonewa re, I nclu sions an d slip 9. 5 x 13 . 5 x 3.5 in

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Sa n d y Lo c kwo o d Unstan Bowl , 2 01 9 Stonewa re, I nclu sions an d slip 4 . 5 x 11 . 5 x 11 .5 in

Sa n d y Lo c kwo o d Unstan Bowl , 2 01 9 Stonewa re, I nclu sions an d slip 5 x 12 x 12 in

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Sa n d y Lo c kwo o d ‘Meshwork Fragment’ wall piece, 2 019 Stonewa re a nd I n clu sions 2. 5 x 11 . 5 x 12 .5 in

Sa n d y Lo c kwo o d ‘Meshwork Fragment’ wall piece, 2 019 Stonewa re a nd I n clu sions 1 2. 5 x 12 . 5 x 2.2 5 in

S a ndy Loc kwood ‘Meshwork Fragment’ wall piece, 2 019 Sto newa re a nd I nc l us i o ns 2 .5 x 12 x 12 .5 i n

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S a ndy Loc kwood ‘Meshwork Fragment’ wall piece, 2 019 Sto newa re a nd I nc l us i o ns 8 .75 x 12 .5 x 2 .5 i n

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Sa ndy Loc kwood ‘Standing Stone’ (Stones of Place Series), 2019 Stonewa re, i nc l us i o ns a nd s l i p 13 x 13 x 3 .5 i n

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Sa n d y Lo c kwo o d ‘Standing Stone’ (Stones of Place Series), 2019 Stonewa re, inclu sions an d slip 9. 5 x 8 . 5 x 2 . 5 in

Sandy Loc kwood ‘Standing Stone’ (Stones of Place Series), 2019 Stonewa re, i nc l us i o ns a nd s l i p 9.5 x 8 .5 x 2 .5 i n

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