Remnants by Nicholas Arroyave-Portela | Solo Exhibition
Vessel Gallery presents Remnants, a solo exhibition by Nicholas Arroyave-Portela. Born in England but with Colombian and Spanish heritage, Arroyave-Portela is a cross-cultural ceramist whose works reveal an imaginative, haptic engagement with form and process.
For his latest collection of vessel-shaped sculptures, Arroyave-Portela has produced aesthetically refined, pared-down forms in stoneware thrown on the wheel and glazed simply but powerfully.
Two highly personal works feature dense blocks of transfer print words, on the themes of ‘Looking Forward’ and ‘Letting Go’. The words were written out by hand from a list compiled by the artist with his mother and sister, and then superimposed with the aid of a graphic designer. ‘I wanted to get their essence,’ Arroyave-Portela says, ‘almost like a vibration.’
The idea of integrating words into an abstract sculpture with which they could resonate was also inspired by experiments with the patterns formed by frozen water in response to language, conducted by the Japanese scientist, Dr Masaru Emoto.
The motif of the gesture is central to Arroyave-Portela’s work. For him, clay is ‘an obvious means of recording expression.’ The works shown in Remnants represent the latest stage in his intuitive approach to making, connecting head, heart and hands. ‘It’s about freeing your physicality and just working with instinct,’ he says, ‘as though your hands have their own mind.’
Also on display are three ambitious wall pieces from the new collection Lost Intentions. Each is glazed in a single colour – black, gold or white; together they explore the artist’s idea of ‘touch-based emotion’, using thick, cracked surfaces to speak directly to the viewer’s heart, without the need for words. They draw inspiration from the gestural forms of the Spanish artist Miguel Barcelo and the Catalan artist Claudi Casanovas, who treats clay as something geological.
Exhibition dates | 6 November - 18 December 2024
Exhibition Artworks
For his latest collection of vessel-shaped sculptures, Arroyave-Portela has produced aesthetically refined, pared-down forms in stoneware thrown on the wheel and glazed simply but powerfully.
Two highly personal works feature dense blocks of transfer print words, on the themes of ‘Looking Forward’ and ‘Letting Go’. The words were written out by hand from a list compiled by the artist with his mother and sister, and then superimposed with the aid of a graphic designer. ‘I wanted to get their essence,’ Arroyave-Portela says, ‘almost like a vibration.’
The idea of integrating words into an abstract sculpture with which they could resonate was also inspired by experiments with the patterns formed by frozen water in response to language, conducted by the Japanese scientist, Dr Masaru Emoto.
The motif of the gesture is central to Arroyave-Portela’s work. For him, clay is ‘an obvious means of recording expression.’ The works shown in Remnants represent the latest stage in his intuitive approach to making, connecting head, heart and hands. ‘It’s about freeing your physicality and just working with instinct,’ he says, ‘as though your hands have their own mind.’
Also on display are three ambitious wall pieces from the new collection Lost Intentions. Each is glazed in a single colour – black, gold or white; together they explore the artist’s idea of ‘touch-based emotion’, using thick, cracked surfaces to speak directly to the viewer’s heart, without the need for words. They draw inspiration from the gestural forms of the Spanish artist Miguel Barcelo and the Catalan artist Claudi Casanovas, who treats clay as something geological.
Exhibition dates | 6 November - 18 December 2024
Exhibition Artworks