Download PDF: Philip Eglin Ceramic Review Issue 239

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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 6 7 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
8 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. 32 CERAMIC REVIEW 239 September/October 2009 9 10
Page 1 and 2: 1 2 The Sacred and the Profane Aman
Page 3: 4 RCA AND AFTER Paolozzi was one of

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