Jacqueline Spedding
Vestiges of the Forgotten, 2014
In Transcend, forms of upended garden pots hang tangled in the rainforest vines and scattered on the valley floor. Caught in the forest canopy, and lying broken and disintegrating on the ground, they are like debris washed into the valley by flood.
The work evokes notions of sublime encounters with nature alongside ideas of the picturesque, represented in the simple form of the common garden pot. In the rainforest, 'wild' vies with the domestic. Within this space, the audience is invited to consider our relationship with nature and to question our sense of order and control over it.
For this work, each piece is individually handmade. The pots embody both presence and absence: as objects they hold traces of plants pressed into the clay during making, but as forms they are 'empty'. The plant matter burns out in the kiln, leaving behind delicate, fossil-like traces in the surface.
Each piece is a relic, a remnant of something familiar, made strange in the rainforest setting.
Ceramic, metal hooks.