I have been invited to show five ceramic pieces in this new exhibition, along with a small group of other sculptors who also use fired clay as part of their practice.
In an area termed Old Europe, archaeologists have excavated many small female figurines dating back to the Neolithic period of Prehistory. These little sculptures have been interpreted as ‘Earth Goddesses’ suggesting belief in a divinity who gave birth to and presided over a Nature that was both revered and sacred.
Today, our understanding of how life emerged and evolved is of course very different. However, science still uses figurative metaphors to help explain and discuss how evolution functions, an example of which is the ‘Red Queen’ borrowed from Lewis Carroll’s stories of Alice.
In imagining what a Red Queen of evolution might look like, I made a number of small figurative sculptures and was then struck by how little difference there was in essence between the Red Queen and a Neolithic Goddess. In consequence, these ceramic figures are imagined deities of evolution. Like Life itself, the surface patterns are cellular, making up the emerging forms that might develop into the biodiversity of the living world.
Although science has given us an understanding of the biological processes of life, we seem unable to hold it sacred as our early ancestors once did, the result being the impending ecological crises that confront us today.
RWA Royal West of England Academy, Queens Road, Clifton,Bristol
26 March – 12 May 2024
DREAMING IN FIRE