2021, 藝象空間 Art Space, Tainan National University of the Arts, Tainan, Taiwan
Sometimes I like the frames more than the paintings.—Steve Martin
Nothing Definite But Definitely Something is a series of fifteen black stoneware wall tiles. The tiles are formed from square sheets of clay whose edges are broken off then reattached orthogonally to the picture plane to frame it in relief. Variations of the vesica piscis are cut into the tile & painted in blue & white slip. Drawing in sgraffito in the black clay & blue & white slip is the last layer, like shadow. The tiles are fired to ^7 in reduction. This causes the clay itself, not just a glaze, to flow. It is like turning charcoal into glass. The heat curves the rectilinear parts & adds a lustrous leathery surface with new textures bubbling to the surface of the highly vitrified clay. The title, Nothing Definite But Definitely Something, is taken from “On Poetry & Uncertain Subjects”, an essay by Jack Underwood: “It gets you wondering, doing the imaginative hard work of empathy, the heat of that sun, its cigar-tip crackling, the sky doubly wide open, and something shocking, mortal, weighing down on a collective memory of trauma…. Not something definite, but definitely something.”
2021, black stoneware with blue & white slips