"My passion is fuelled by the immense potential in this porcelain and the breathtaking impact it carries when realised on a monumental scale. the sheer beauty it exudes, whether applied to creating tabletop-sized objects or architectural marvels, enchants me. There's an inherent sense of wonder and phenomenon that adds to its allure." - Felicity Aylieff.
I had come across Felicity Aylieff's huge ceramic works only once previously whilst upstairs in the vast Ceramics gallery on the fourth floor of the Victoria and Albert Museum. I was impressed by their impressive size, and wondered what kind of kiln would be required to fire ceramic pieces on this scale. This question and more were answered on a winter walk around Kew Gardens where Aylieff's work is currently installed at the Shirley Sherwood Gallery of Botanical Art. To create these colossal vessels Aylieff (a Professor at the Royal College of Art), works collaboratively with a team of specialists from two family businesses - the Xin Liang Big Pot Factory, and Zhen Shang Creamics company in the city of Jingdezhen, which lies in the Jiangxe province of South-Eastern China. This "Porcelain Capital" has been an ancient home in the manufacture of ceramics since the 6th Century and the place where porcelain clay is actually mined too. In Jingdezhen Aylieff is able to realise her visions of creating big pieces, working with enormous brushes to create bold, abstract, gestural marks in an intense cobalt blue reinterpreting Chinese blue and white pottery. In this respect Aylieff is like an abstract expressionist painter. The marks, made using a combination of sweeping broad brushstrokes and deliberate Jackson Pollock-style spatters really complement the proportions of the pieces. Aylieff states - "Painting at scale is liberating; I love working with huge calligraphy brushes, proportionate in size to the pots. Employing my entire body, I build up layers of rich blue tones. each gestural stroke of the brush is a reaction to the one before. The abstract marks are powerful and bold, and I use them to energise the glazed surface." You can see pictures of Aylieff engaged in the act of painting these huge pots and the physicality involved below. As well as the photographs of Aylieff there are examples of the large brushes the artist employs in her work included in a display case in the exhibition too. There are also some amazing photographs of the teams of artisans creating the pieces in clay at each stage of their production. One aspect of Aylieff's oeuvre I thought I wouldn't like but actually did, are the more colourful ceramic pieces based on foliage and plants. These are known as Fencai, which in the west is known as famille rose, meaning soft colours. Fencai is a traditional Chinese decorative technique dating from the 18th century in which dark lines are painted on ceramics in an oil-based solution, before in-filling the spaces with jewel-like enamel colours. The wide range of hues, created through combining crushed, pigmented frit and iron powder, are painted over a white, glazed surface as a secondary layer of colour. Aylieff noted parallels in the way Fencai artisans translated colour and detail and the botanical illustrations held at Kew, before adapting its techniques for a series of botanical inspired works of her own in porcelain. Subtle changes in the adaptation have been made to include dots of infilled colour creating a new visual language. The version of Fencai on Aylieff's pots contains big, frothy blooms, plants with a personal significance such as Ipomoea, Campsis and Parrot Tulips which evoke her childhood memories. As said earlier I didn't think I would like these Fencai pieces having seen them on her gallerist Adrian Sassoon's Instagram feed, however I found them to be really enchanting, and complementary to the abstract, monochromatic blue pieces Aylieff creates. I loved the use of gold to enhance the colours and surface lustre. The colours and mark-making in this exhibition as well as the colours and seasonal textures in the grounds at Kew were a real tonic in the grey depths of what seems like an eternal winter.
Expressions in Blue: Monumental Porcelain by Felicity Aylieff
until 23rd March
Shirley Sherwood Gallery of Botanical Art
Kew Gardens
London
TW9 3AE
