Download PDF: Philip Eglin Ceramic Review Issue 239

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1 Christ after Hugo van der Goes, porcelain, 2008, H63cm 2 Crucifixion, porcelain, 2008, H53cm 3 Pieta, raku, 2009, H43cm 3
4 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 30 CERAMIC REVIEW 239 September/October 2009 5
Page 1: 1 2 The Sacred and the Profane Aman
Page 5 and 6: 8 that involves fixing the transfer

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