REVIEW
Pitch perfect porcelain Colin Martin highlights the Australian potter Kirsten Coelho’s Uncertain Cadence exhibition at The Scottish Gallery in Edinburgh this summer
ABOVE: Vase and Bowl, 2022, H29 x W17 x L30cm
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of rust, are actually painstakingly applied porcelain ‘rivets.’ Fired multiple times, the celadon glaze has pooled at the base of the cylinder and crazed, adding a dramatic effect. ‘I make sketches before throwing, however so many things could go wrong in firing and glazing porcelain that it is important to learn to improvise,’ said Coelho. Risk-taking and improvisation are two sides of the same coin in her ceramic practice. Having observed her process for three decades, her husband Derek Pascoe, a jazz saxophonist, has commented (in Wendy Walker’s 2020 monograph on the artist) that her improvisational ‘approach to the process of throwing and arranging her works’ correlates with improvised musical performance. ‘My working practice allows forms to riff off each other as I throw them,’ commented Coelho.
STIMULATING EMOTIONS Coelho’s installations, including Ithaca, and her individual or small groups of works, as presented in Uncertain Cadence, carry an emotional charge mirroring that provided by music. They stimulate viewers to reflect on the meaning 28
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of material culture. Her work has been influenced by two painters whose handling of daylight and artificial light she admires: Giorgio Morandi, in his still life compositions of household objects and Vilhelm Hammershøi, in his depictions of Danish domestic interiors. An earlier example of the contemplative power of Coelho’s work is Still Life of 12 Pieces, 2013, a group of matt white glazed porcelain vessels banded with iron oxide, positioned on a mantel in the gilded Grand Dining Room at Chatsworth House. It is an aesthetic palate cleanser, which provides a moment of repose or reflection in an opulent, richly decorated interior. What is offered in Edinburgh is a pandemic-delayed opportunity to see, and for collectors to acquire, individual works or smaller groupings of works from an artist working at the height of her considerable powers, whose practice elevates ceramics from their quotidian function to eloquent repositories of cultural and material history. For details visit kirstencoelho.com; Uncertain Cadence, The Scottish Gallery, until 27 August; scottish-gallery.co.uk
Images: courtesy of the artist; Ithaca, © Sam Noonan; all others © Grant Hancock
ABOVE, CLOCKWISE FROM TOP: Pronaos, 2022, H21.5 x W26 x L30cm; Bowl, 2022, H15.5 x W12.5 x L14.5cm; Ginger Jar #3, 2022, H27 x Dia15cm; Rille, 2022, H16.5 x Dia23cm