Download PDF: Philip Eglin Ceramic Review Issue 239

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The Sacred
and the Profane
Amanda Game is intrigued by the diverse influences in Philip Eglin’s new work.
Gathering dust on a glass shelf in Philip Eglin’s studio in Stokeon-Trent
sit a group of tiny, modelled red clay figure groups of
The Artist and his Model. Just a few centimetres high and created, he
tells me, in a panic as he was coming towards the end of his three
year study at the Royal College of Art and had not enough work to
show for it, these captivating miniatures hold the seeds of much of
what has followed in the subsequent two decades. In their almost
Rubenesque curves one can see his remarkable, sensuous handling
of clay, his developing references to the iconography and images
of the art of the past, in particular the female nude, and his keen
understanding of historical ceramics – in this case early Staffordshire
figure groups.
To spend a few hours in Eglin’s studio is to become physically
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CERAMIC REVIEW 239 September/October 2009
and intellectually immersed in his exceptional and encyclopaedic
imaginative world. The figures occupy one small shelf in a studio
crammed with visual prompts for the viewer and the artist. Glaze
tests; plaster moulds; newspaper photographs of jubilant footballers;
his own life drawings; children’s drawings; half finished medieval jugs;
scribbled notes; sheets of transfers; books of Renaissance paintings;
piles of commercial china blanks; discards from printed Spode
factory ware; bags of White St Thomas’s clay; plastic bottles; soft
porn lithophanes; postcards of medieval woodcarvings and much,
much more. The rhythm of his studio is almost overwhelming in
its intensity of information, reminiscent of the studio of the late Sir
Eduardo Paolozzi, lovingly recreated in all its eclectic glory at the Dean
Gallery in Edinburgh.

1 Christ after Hugo van der Goes, porcelain,
2008, H63cm 2 Crucifixion, porcelain,
2008, H53cm 3 Pieta, raku, 2009, H43cm
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RCA AND AFTER Paolozzi was one of Eglin’s tutors at the RCA and
the young potter was pressed into service in the sculptor’s studio,
modelling and making moulds – a practical training of some use to
an emerging maker. Yet there is little stylistic trace of the mechanistic,
robotic figure forms which are typical of the work of the Scottish
artist. From the moment of graduation from the RCA in 1986 Eglin’s
gaze has rested almost exclusively on the female form. The high
bosomed, loosely modelled earthenware nudes inspired by the
sinuous knowingness of Lucas Cranach’s paintings gave way to
the blunt polychrome Madonna and Child figures that echo the physical
qualities of the medieval religious woodcarvings, which are their
visual inspiration. As Eglin says, clay has the potential ‘to mimic the
essence of other materials’, something which clearly fascinates him
in the same way that an artist like Gerhard Richter is fascinated by
the potential of the painted surface; both to be and to represent
many things.
As we walk into the studio Eglin remarks that his forthcoming
show at the Scottish Gallery is ‘all about religion’. A sheet of oxide
transfers juxtaposing popes and prostitutes – mostly transfers derived
from his own drawings as well as those made by his two sons Oliver
and Morgan – highlights the ambiguity contained within these
throwaway words. As John Christian observed, Eglin has an ‘eagerness
to associate opposites: the ancient and the modern; the universal
and the private; the sacred and the profane’. In the new work being
moulded, modelled and considered in the studio, this duality is
clearly apparent. Plastic juice bottles, littering the streets around
his workshop, are seen as possible moulds for the bodies of his
Christ figures in a new series of stoneware Crucifixions.
To see at close quarters the compelling transformation of ribbed
plastic waste into the stretched ribs of Christ in agony – as represented
by thousands of carvers and painters throughout medieval Europe – is
to understand the particular brilliance of Eglin’s visual alertness and
his fascination with the transfer of language. A new group of seated
Madonnas, assembled likewise from moulds of household waste, are
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CERAMIC REVIEW 239 September/October 2009
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4 Three Dog dishes, raku, 2009,
Ø12cm each 5 Pieta, earthenware, 1999,
H90cm 6 Christ as the Man of Sorrows,
earthenware, 2008, Ø18cm 7 Pope and
Prostitute, raku, 2009, W21cm
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being subjected to raku firings, which creates a softer quality of
surface texture – with glimmerings of lustre – echoing the bleached,
weathered quality of lime-wood medieval carvings. Eglin improvises
within the language of clay to find visual equivalents for his fascination
with different forms of language – both visual and verbal.
RAKU Eglin describes his excitement with the immediacy of the
raku firing process – an excitement reanimated by a recent workshop
with first year students at Stoke University where he teaches. The
workbench on which the nascent Madonnas sit is covered with test
pieces where he is trying to ensure that the definition of the transfer
drawings is retained within the softness of the raku glazes, a process
CERAMIC REVIEW 239 September/October 2009 31

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that involves fixing the transfers to the raw unglazed surface with
latex. Although these laboratory test pieces suggest an artist with a
scientific rigour of approach, Eglin is quick to dismiss any image of
himself as the careful technologist. It is, he stresses, ‘at the point of
unknowing that the magic happens’, and all the testing can be seen
as the artist’s way of relaxing into a rhythm of thinking, like musical
improvisation, to reach the right note.
A recent exhibition at the Nieuwe Kerk in Amsterdam (a secular
exhibition space in a fifteenth century church) drew together works
with religious iconography from the collections of the Stedelijk
Museum and reunited Eglin’s earlier porcelain Madonnas with their
spiritual home. The preciousness and vulnerability of the small-scale,
white, gilt-edged figures, was enhanced through display in carefully
lit, well-positioned glass cases in the historic church spaces – much
like tiny altar pieces, their contemporary nature complemented by
juxtaposition with paintings by Julian Schnabel and the photographic
collages of Gilbert and George. Eglin was delighted by a display that
emphasised his enquiry into contemporary image-making whilst
respecting his fascination for objects of the past.
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8 Tomorrow's Assassin, earthenware,
2008, H52cm 9 La Nuova Religione,
earthenware, 2008, H55cm 10 Poppadum
Madonna, bone china, 2006, H43cm
11 Plaster moulds 12 Workshop wall
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Technical Information See page 68
Photography Oliver Eglin
Exhibition Popes, Pin-ups and Pooches,
The Scottish Gallery, Edinburgh, until
5 September 2009
Web www.scottish-gallery.co.uk
Philip Eglin
Email phileglin@ntlworld.com
Amanda Game
Email amanda.game@yahoo.co.uk
The new group of Madonnas, transfer printed plates and Crucifixions,
on show in Edinburgh this summer, reveal an artist reaching a
new confidence and maturity with his language. The duality, the
playfulness and the ambiguity of Eglin’s new work draws the viewer
into a fascinating conversation with the nature of objects and their
role in allowing us to consider both ourselves, and the world
around us, in different ways. It is an exciting moment to be part
of Eglin’s journey.
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