“Potters are not fashionable,” according to Newcastle artist John Heaney.
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“The art world doesn’t like potters because we are considered too homely, “ he said.
“But I don’t care. I work with clay.”
Heaney’s journey into pottery first began on a part-time basis in the mid-80s.
“When I left full-time work in about 2002, I went to the Australian National University because they had some of the best potters in Australia working there,” Heaney said.
“Since then I have been working full-time.”
His work is considered experimental.
The pieces are not functional.
“My work references the vessel,” he said.
“I started off looking at the tea bowl, I love tea bowls.”
“Japanese, Korean, Chinese – there are millions of tea bowls produced every year and people who do it in the west, they do it with extraordinary skill, but there is nothing in it.
“I find them empty in terms of intellectual and emotional content.
“So, I decided to deconstruct the tea bowl and went off the wheel. I started to make things around a rough shape, referencing a bowl but using slabs and [started] breaking things up.
“They started getting bigger and bigger, now they are about 40-50cm, and they are flat.
“I work very quickly and I join very quickly. If you work quickly you can’t start to premeditate things.
“What determines what you do is A) the material and B) the size … and when they get into the kiln they start to warp and flatten.”
The works are made to be hung on the wall, rather than displayed on a table.
“People who collect my work, one bloke said, ‘You do know this is going to go on the table,” Heaney said.
“There is a different story to it when they go on a wall, and that's what I find interesting.
"If it’s on a table there are different expectations for what it’s going to be used for, it’s homely.
“If you put it up on a wall, and people have been doing this since the Renaissance, they are there to provide a narrative.
“The use is to provide a narrative rather than to hold food.
“Holding food is a very honorable thing, but this is a different way of doing it.”
Heaney will soon exhibit about nine pieces of art at an exhibition titled Love and Friendship at Hamilton’s Gallery 139.
Some of the works demonstrate the artist’s ongoing interest in textiles, including hat
The exhibition runs from May 3-20, at Gallery 139, 139 Beaumont Street, Hamilton.
Visit gallery139.com.au
