Contemporary British Ceramics by Thorpe Ashley;

Author:Thorpe, Ashley;
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: The Crowood Press

Red Cone (2019).

(Photograph by Michael Harvey)

Blue Wall (2018).

(Photograph by Michael Harvey)

Box Forms (2017).

(Photograph by Michael Harvey)

Yellow Structure (2016).

(Photograph by Michael Harvey)

Other sculptures, such as Yellow Structure (2016) and the small series of Box Forms (2017), evoke abstracted tower blocks. As a relatively modern design, tower blocks have become cost-effective construction projects in both industrial and domestic settings. The emphasis on the rectangle in these sculptures is suggestive of both windows and rooms. In many modern flat developments, the interior is segmented in such a way that people co-exist but are not provided with the tools of meaningful communal interaction. This sense of fragmented community, of togetherness without interaction, or a kind of collective individualism, is alluded to in these sculptures. The transparent interior of works like Yellow Structure suggest to me an absence of meaningful interior connection. The ‘community in the sky’ ideology that modernist architects dreamed of has, in reality, produced a modular experience that facilitates community only in ambivalent, sometimes even dystopic, ways.

The Industrial Revolution produced industrial architecture, but it also produced leisure. Factory production was no longer reliant on the seasons but could be managed as a year-round activity. To maintain a productive workforce a religious ‘day of rest’ (Sunday) was firmly established by the middle of the nineteenth century. From 1871, workers were entitled to an additional four days of paid leave per year to be taken as holiday. As railway transportation increased, families might afford a day trip to the seaside, where the pleasure pier grew to become an important attraction. Like gas holders, piers now have listed status and are considered iconic markers in the British cultural landscape.

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