John Crawford Cheryl Lucas Chris Weaver 22 August - 12 Sept

Across The Divide presents the work of three leading contemporary ceramicists; John Crawford, Cheryl Lucas and Chris Weaver, each displaying a mastery of technique as well as a distinctly unique style and subject matter within the medium. The exhibition spans the divide between domestic tableware and sculptural art forms as well as the physical divide of mountains between Weaver and Crawford both located on the West Coast of the South Island and Lucas, located on the East Coast. Establishing a dialogue Across The Divide deliberately calls attention to both the harmony and variances between each practitioner.

For price enquiries please contact Lydia Baxendell: lydia@gallery33.co.nz

Accomplished artist John Crawford demonstrates proficiency in both painting and ceramics. He produces art works whose composition and form have the ability to transcend medium. Crawford’s works often articulate his attachment to the local environment; the wild and wind swept settlement of Ngakawau on the West Coast. He combs the beach collecting imagery of tide lines imprinted on the sand by the outgoing sea, sunlight reflecting on dappled water or waves lapping at a jagged rock face. Crawford sees and stores a visual image in the memory and subsequently translates this into his drawings and ceramics.

Black lines bleed and coil themselves into the matt biscuit coloured surface of Crawford’s ceramic pieces. Hand-coiled, pinched and sculpted into shape, his tall elegant vessels own a commanding presence. Each form is decorated with perforated lines, marks and textures to reflect the rhythm and flow of the artist’s local environment. Crawford’s drawings convey the same strong sense of location. Incorporating the natural hues of his immediate surroundings, the artist works in oil stick and printers ink on paper, building a lyrical rhythm where delicate black lines score, thread and outline blocks of opaque colour.

A practicing artist since 1973, with work in major private and public collections both nationally and internationally, John Crawford established his own studio in partnership with Anne Crawford over thirty years ago and has participated in exhibitions nationally and overseas in Munich, Taipei and most recently in Hong Kong.

For further images and information regarding the artist click on the link to his artist page: John Crawford

Sand Vessel II (2008), ceramic	Sand Vessel III (2008), ceramic	Sand Vessel I (2008), ceramic

Wave (2008), oil stick and printers ink on paper (unframed)

Like Crawford, the vessel form within Cheryl Lucas’s work is central. The jug and funnel shape have been a recurring form within Lucas’s oeuvre and in this body she pushes the boundaries of the motif further. Throughout history, the jug or pitcher has been utilised as a ceremonial and religious symbol, as an instrument to signify fertility, life force, social status and, of course, as a functional domestic vessel to carry and pour water or milk.

Lucas is well-known for the metaphorical qualities of her vessels which convey a narrative often reflecting or commenting on aspects of social and environmental existence. Her current works are a response to the excess and mass-production considered a normality living in the twenty-first century. Growing up on a farm in Central Otago where gold mining took place in the 1860s, Lucas is acutely aware of leaving the remnants of history behind, as  the gold miners left evidence of their lives in the form of ceramic, tin and glass.  A question that preoccupies Lucas is that of wondering how our present existence might be revealed to future generations given  the current land use practices and use of containers made from less durable materials than clay.

While the form is integral, the function of Lucas’s vessels has been made redundant. A master of sculptural illusion, Lucas plays visual games by muddling or altering the formal aspects of jug and funnel shapes. She elongates, exaggerates and bends the structural contour or flattens the vessel entirely. A number of works hang from the wall reminiscent of rabbit pelts draped carelessly on a barbed wire fence. While others are set jauntily off centre seeming to tip precariously while a foreign liquid dribbles over the lip and puddles at the base.

In previous series Lucas utilised the vessel's surface as a support for drawing or painting, to extend her visual vernacular. There is a noticeable absence of surface mark making in her current vessels. In pale washed out hues, the works rely on the exquisite glazed and crazed surface of her striking  forms to convey meaning.

A practicing artist since 1975, Lucas has exhibited regularly both nationally and internationally. Her work is held in the collection of Canterbury Museum, Christchurch Art Gallery, the Australasian Ceramic Museum, Fuping, China.

Funnels (2008), ceramic	Bowl & Jug (2008), ceramic	Funnel & Jug (2008), ceramic
Redundant Jugs (2008), ceramic	Muffin Top Jugs (2008), ceramic	Redundant Jug (2008), ceramic

While Lucas and Crawford elevate the vessel into the realms of sculpture, Chris Weaver demonstrates the subtle beauty, elegant simplicity and utility of domestic vessels such as the ubiquitous teapot, platter and lidded condiment jar. Like Crawford, Weaver takes inspiration from his rugged West Coast surroundings, taking familiar objects, patterns and imagery and employing them within the clay medium. The relationship between form aesthetic and function are fundamental to Weaver, he states ‘I like producing tableware because I like things to have a purpose, but also to have a sculptural element to them’.

Weaver’s ceramics have a superior sense of finesse achieved from years of continual development within the field. There is a Zen like simplicity and grace applied to Weaver’s forms where detail and applied function are integral elements. His teapots are perhaps his most well known form, the shape developing from an antique pressing iron. As a true tea connoisseur will appreciate, each teapot pours perfectly and is finished with a sinuous rimu handle and wooden pins.

There is a satisfying straightforwardness yet subtle diversity achieved by the artist in each piece. Many of the works in this exhibition are thrown and altered while still on the wheel. They are squared off and sliced with a heavy cord to expose the marks left by the process. Weaver’s glazes are often simple black white, blue or green. He constantly varies this by experimenting with matt and gloss surfaces and the ‘orange peel’ surface achieved by introducing salt to the final stage of firing. The unique transparent depth of Weaver’s celedon glaze in his current work varies from a dark green to a duck-egg blue displaying a virtuoso mastery of the medium.

Weaver has been a practicing artist since 1975. He has exhibited throughout New Zealand as well as Australia, USA, Japan, Hong Kong and Taiwan. His work features in many private and public collections including Auckland Museum, Suter Art Gallery, Dowse Art Museum, Canterbury Museum, Otago Museum, Mino Ceramic Park, Tajimi, Japan, New Zealand Embassy, Tokyo, Japan and Australasian Museum, Fuping, China to name but a few.

For further images and information regarding the artist click on the link to his artist page: Chris Weaver

Black Tea Pot and Jar (2008), ceramic	Condiment Set (2008), ceramic	Tea Pot and Tea Jar (2008), ceramic
Teaset II (2008), ceramic	Platter (2008), ceramic	Teaset I (2008), ceramic

Text by Lydia Baxendell 2008