To Sir John Soane's Museum for the first time in many years to see this charming exhibition of ceramics by Bouke de Vries based on William Hogarth's series of eight paintings - The Rake's Progress (1732-1734) housed within the museum. I discovered the work of de Vries online in 2021 and featured him in my occasional series Butterflies Through Others Eyes (here), because of the use of the butterfly motif employed in his work. This exhibition was a perfect opportunity to see de Vries work in the physical to get a true idea of the scale in which he works and how he uses surface textures and finishes etc. The full set of eight porcelain baluster ceramic vases were beautifully displayed under dramatic lighting on a semi-circular mirrored table each backed by a gilded gold arch, in the intimate Foyle Space of the museum. The vases are a traditional eighteenth-century shape and each one employs an impressive variety of ceramic techniques to re-tell Hogarth's tale of young heir and spendthrift Tom Rakewell's fall from grace as he journeyed through London wasting his money on the high-life, prostitution, and gambling which ultimately led to a spell in Fleet prison and then Bethlem Hospital (Bedlam). Rakewell's follies are retold through the series of vases which begin in a lovely celadon colour and then gradually darken to a near black celadon colour, and rupture and explode spectacularly to illustrate the vanity in the passage of the young man's wanton descent into madness. De Vries demonstrates his sensitivity to the ceramics and knack for storytelling in the medium through a clever range of techniques such as Japanese kintsugi where gold is used to repair a fractured vase in much the same way Rakewell attempts to repair his life through marrying a wealthy widow. He also uses a traditional technique of using metal staples to repair a vase here, a metaphor for Rakewell's imprisonment. A metal armature has been used to hold the exploded, fragmented shards of another vase, which is a device de Vries uses in some of his other artworks. De Vries has created a unique and exciting series of porcelain vessels and a great medium in which to tell Rakewell's sorry narrative in a new way.
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