GEORGINA COBURN welcomes significant results from the Making Progress initiative
AS PART of the Making Progress Craft initiative, the Craft Spotlight series of exhibitions at IMAG have highlighted the quality, vision and excellence of craftsmanship of Highland-based artists and makers, placing their work in a national context. The programme of mentoring and business support for four selected artists, together with the creation of new work showcased in each exhibition, has clearly resulted in significant creative and professional development.
Daniel Kavanagh’s current exhibition is a shining example of the value of this investment in creative process, enabling artist’s to stretch the parameters of their practice, explore new materials and techniques, and take their work to a whole new level. The result here is a resoundingly strong and unified visual statement by an artist uniquely engaged with ceramics and bronze, exploiting the qualities of those materials with an impressive command of sculptural form.
There is depth and presence in this new body of work representing an expansion not only in relation to the physical scale of Kavanagh’s practice, but in terms of the artist’s overall creative development. This distillation of visual language represents the foundation of an emerging voice in International Contemporary Art and a significant milestone in the artist’s work to date.
Three signature works create an immediately striking first impression on walking into IMAG’s small gallery space. The central and largest of these works, Lith (Ceramic and Bronze), has an almost figurative presence. Seen from the front, the bold solidity of black dominates, set into an unfinished base of natural wood.
The delicacy of scored marks, dappled white and bronze heart detail towards the base of the sculpture, together with the tapered elegance of form seen acutely on both sides, present the viewer with strength and vulnerability that is tangibly human. The immovability of the monolith is countered by the delicacy of its contours.
Kavanagh’s characteristically elegant and robust treatment of form has evolved further in this latest body of work, influenced by Eastern ceramics and ancient monuments seen in the landscapes of Lewis, Harris and Orkney. The presence and history of such monuments as human marks upon the landscape are reinterpreted with sensitivity and insight in the artist’s sculptural works. The interplay of natural and man-made textures, use of the drawn mark and exploration of tonality within sculptural form all combine to direct and delight the eye.
Highly polished bronze is used effectively as a core element within many of the sculptural works, and this light-reflective material also directs our gaze in a uniquely interior way. Gold lustre and polished bronze are used sparingly and with deliberation, not merely as a decorative element or as an outer shell, but integral to our reading of form as a distinctive human mark.
Vessel Form (Porcelain and Bronze), its interior sealed by a surface of polished bronze, or Untitled (Earthenware and Bronze), which holds the precious material within the interior curve of the sculpture, are two examples, presenting the viewer with an object that celebrates not only its own beauty but the seeds of an idea.
Kavanagh’s exploration of materials and textures using hand-built and thrown techniques engages fully with an understanding of both Craft and Fine Art disciplines. The display of a stunning series of three bowls in earthenware and gold lustre, defined by subtle variations in their bases and dimensions, sit equally with more conceptual sculptural works.
The poetic rhythm of these three pieces and how they inform each other provides a fascinating dialogue which is expanded throughout the exhibition. Works are displayed beautifully in relation to each other and three maquettes on display give valuable insight into the artist’s process and experimentation with form, tone and mark, developed further in larger sculptural pieces.
The contemplative nature of Kavanagh’s work is exemplified in Relic (Paper, Clay and Bronze), a sophisticated exploration of simplified form. This superb work frozen in a state of exquisite collapse feels organically charged, simultaneously alive and in a state of disintegration, like the splitting of an atom.
Relic is a curiously beautiful combination of man-made mark and natural organism, vision and object, the application of white pigment radiating from the central U-form reading like a nucleus or portal. Sense of perspective and depth within this work is deceptive on closer inspection; it is at once a flattened surface and an entire world in the mind’s eye. Kavanagh has employed a painterly tonality into the sculptural object that creates not just a third dimension but a fourth.
Birdstone is positively aerodynamic in its grace and needs to be appreciated from every possible angle. Abstraction of form equals pure expression in this work, the roughened texture of paper clay and accents of polished bronze in perfect balance. Attention to detail, the finishing and patina of the object actively inform our reading of the work, created with care and viewed reverently in consequence.
This exhibition heralds an exciting new phase in Kavanagh’s work, a stage of evolution which will continue when the artist takes up residency at Cove Park in Argyll in September. It is a pleasure to see in the Craft Spotlight series of exhibitions the potential of Highland-based artists acknowledged, fostered and made visible to a wider public.
The continuation and expansion of this project is essential in placing the work of our best artists and makers on a world stage to the benefit of the entire region. Making Progress and the resulting showcased work illustrates that this confidence and investment in creative and professional development is entirely justified.
© Georgina Coburn, 2010
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