Allotrope Edition 09 - 'Waste Moulds'

Waste Moulds

Waste Moulds Stephen Morgan

Waste Moulds explores artist Stephen Morgan’s techniques of customising moulds, casting and firing ceramics. Morgan’s process is key, allowing a window of accident to infiltrate his outcomes, as raw materials move through the firing of clay in a kiln or the solidifying of bone-china in a purpose-built mould. These industrial processes incorporate uncertain levels of control to the works produced. Morgan’s studio sits as a site of many attempts to refine the same object, at times coated or buffed, sanded or varnished. This repetition hones his craft producing more advanced models from the same mould.

Morgan also allows replication to invade his studio experiments, since the objects he uses to cast are often those of an everyday vernacular; a rope, the bottom of a bucket, a large bolt or a folded piece of card. The finish of the resulting work aims to also embody the energy of the labour involved. His methods vary from large-scale crystacal plaster-casting in custom-sealed cylinders, to ceramic ‘extrusions’ that slump under their own weight. By producing simple forms through complex techniques, Morgan begins to hint at larger modular systems; maquettes of megastructures that assert significant geometries. He aims to produce results that are precious, seductive and unique; works that could be mistaken as functional and at times unassuming, but are nonetheless inherently valuable.

This catalogue includes two texts written on Morgan’s work by artist/writer Douglas Park and academic/ceramist Dr Katrina Hiesterman.

allotrope press edition 09 (limited to 100 copies) ISSN 2046 - 2859 edited by Keef Winter

Cover: ‘Two crystals on a plinth’, bone china, clear glaze on a GRP plinth, 2013 Back Page: ‘Gold Blanket’, jesmonite, emergency blanket, 2013

All photographs courtesy of the artist

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Corsetry Produce Symbolic and magical firebrands. Armament and hardware treasure-trove. Weaponry, tool-kit, playthings and jewelry. Spell and ritual equipment.

After more than just some missile launch-pad projectile take-off-&-crash-landing ejection, of quite a few rocket-propelled ammunition, meteorite, comet, supernova and shooting-star torrential air-raid showers later‌.

Grave mineshaft dug deep into solid landmass with similar form.

Unless the complete opposite. Building and growth around chimney tunnel. Perhaps both apply. Maybe even other possibilities, as well as or instead of either those.

Subsequently, miracle fuel and medicine. Liquid daytime sunshine heatwave.

Powdered nocturnal shadow darkness.

Unclear what they cause, by themselves — and when mixed together.

Anyway, emergency blanket. Glam. Functional.

Almost the same, only blacked out.

Nearly become a different material and usage.

Candy-bar sleeping and body bags packaging.

Contents not provided.

Neither quite straight or flat. Each, folded and at angles.

Regardless, self-supporting rope-trick perseveres, against all odds and adversity.

Intravenous and umbilical bridge.

Centralized and universal interlink and prop.

Somehow, taking the full brunt and entire strain.

Meanwhile, opaque diamond. Light glows from through the outlines.

Amulet talisman. Top-heavy overweight lumber and burden. Dependent.

Reliable.

Finally, timber beam monorail tree torso.

Planted on walking turntable. Surrounding reality forced to spin in orbit.

Also available molten, softer and nearly collapsed downwards — but with life, movement and action.

Douglas Park

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MINIMAL MOULDS

Pentagons, cylinders, cones, and discs are some of the minimal ceramic objects Stephan Morgan has constructed.

He has a complex and meticulous way of creating his ceramic sculptures as he tests the functionality of fired clay, creating utility objects of mass production. The reality is all these objects that he has created are hand-built or slip-casted. For example “Studio Shelf” displays the teasing of the bisqueware showing impressions, and molding the clay around existing found objects.

Using specific tools, Morgan attaches various geometric textures and patterns to his body of work.

In the twenty-first century one sees ceramics moving from its functional history to a conceptual understanding such as minimalism in a postmodern context. Emmanuel Cooper states in Contemporary Ceramics about the symbolism of minimalism, “With surface and shape honed down to essential elements, these often make use of geometric forms as a way of distancing the work from any emotional reference, so permitting a particular involvement with the chosen material as a key signifier for meaning.”

Contextually, one can categorize Morgan’s ceramic sculptures as such. He strips down the representation of the ceramics by questioning each objects identity. The delicate slip covers the hard concrete defining an integration between the two techniques, slip-casting and hand building. There is ironic juxtaposition, which is the delicacy of the concrete as seen in “The right grain”.

1. Emmanuel Cooper, Contemporary Ceramics. London: Thames and Hudson, 2009. 126.

In the postmodern context, Morgan uses an interdisciplinary tactic. These objects connect with architectural forms blurring the lines between minimalism and representation creating hybridized art forms. This is what the postmodern context is, various disciplines and approaches coming together creating a new artwork narrative. Stephen Morgan, like other ceramic artists creates a trompe l’oeil language for the ceramic object to fool the viewers’ interpretation.

KATRINA HIESTERMAN

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Stephen Morgan (born 1988, London) lives and works in London.

He graduated with a degree in Fine Art from Middlesex University in 2010.

He works at OPS where his clients regularly include Rachel Whiteread, Eddie Peake, Oscar Murillo and Eva Rothschild among others.

‘Waste Moulds’ is the first solo show by Morgan since graduating and presents a new body of work seen for the first time.

Upcoming shows include: ‘Extrude’, House of St. Barnabas, Soho, London, 2014.

‘Other People’s Sculpture’, Bruno Glint, London, 2013.

i. ‘Studio Shelf’, textural form studies, 2013 ii. ‘Bottom of the buckets’, jesmonite, polyurethane resin, 2013 iii. ‘Silver Blanket’, jesmonite, emergency blanket, 2013 iv. ‘Silver Blanket’, jesmonite, emergency blanket, 2013 v. ‘Iron map’, iron dust, GRP, stainless steel rings, 2013 vi. ‘Two crystals on a plinth’, bone china, clear glaze on a GRP plinth, 2013 vii. ‘Original casts’, bone china, clear glaze on a GRP plinth, 2013 viii. ‘Before and after’, bone china, clear glaze on a GRP plinth, 2013 ix. ‘Hard bend’, herculite plaster, aluminium rod, 2013 x. ‘The right grain’, silicon, polystyrene, jesmonite, herculite, GRP, 2013 xi. ‘Not squares’, stainless steel, 2013 xii. ‘Crop circles’, stainless steel, 2013 xiii. ‘Mesh’, C-Print, 2013 xiv. ‘Casting the cubes’, crystacal, 2013 xv. ‘Casting the cubes’, crystacal, 2013 xvi. ‘Turning pentagon’, iron dust, GRP, 2013 xvii. ‘Fallic 01’, terracotta, 2013 xviii. ‘Fallic 02’, stoneware, 2013 xix. ‘Hard cloth’, GRP, 2013 info@brunoglint.com +44 (0)7730567641

allotrope press ISSN 2046 -2859