SARA FLYNN 30 November 2016 - 12 January 2017
15 Royal Arcade 28 Old Bond Street London, W1S 4SP +44 (0) 20 7491 1706 mail@erskinehallcoe.com www.erskinehallcoe.com
Sara Flynn — New Work This year, Sara Flynn cleared her diary. With a new studio in Belfast, quiet, just around the corner from her new home, she allowed herself to focus entirely on her work. The thirty-three pots on display are the magnificent result of this period of unequivocal dedication. These intriguing, poised, sensuous porcelain vessels and two bronze pieces gleam with assurance. Whether lustrous black, smooth celadon, silky white or patinated metal, whether rising upwards from a narrow foot or confidently planted on a flat base, they seem to hold within themselves an energy that reflects the creative concentration that gave them birth. They delight the eye with their precise asymmetries, the swoops and turns, the nips and tucks, the peaks and bulges, rims and ridges, which correspond to laws of material and process, and of hand, mind and body, which the viewer can sense but not define. Each one is unique - an unrepeatable combination of form and glaze, from a finite repertoire of actions, surfaces and colours - and yet they all arise so clearly from a common ongoing enquiry. As Flynn says, “With every pot I learn something. I can never see myself getting bored of these possibilities.” It was in 1997 that Flynn first began working with porcelain. She explains that it is a problematic material, difficult to throw, without strength until it is fired, but that it has the purity and clarity that she requires. All her pots begin at the wheel. While she may have a rough idea of the kind of pot she is aiming at, she does not sketch them out in advance. Far from the end product, however, the thrown vessel is just the beginning of the creative process. From there, Flynn takes her porcelain vessels in two - and, with the new bronze vessels, now three - directions. With certain pots, at a certain point - “the clay needs to be firm enough not to flop, but not so dry it will crack” - Flynn takes a knife and makes a vertical cut in the clay, before sealing the two halves back together, creating a seam. At the moment of cutting the clay, serendipity enters the process, as the chance movement of the clay is steered into a final dynamic form, with taps and rubs. By contrast, with other pots, Flynn works not from the outside in, but from the inside out, moulding and shaping the thrown form from within, as a baby shapes a mother’s belly. Flynn describes both processes as “drawing”, using the raw material of the thrown vessel to articulate a three dimensional shape. Once the form has reached a pitch of accuracy, Flynn then considers the glaze - the purpose of which always is to disclose the form, to make it legible to the viewer.
Camber Vessel, 2016, 26 cm high (SF-0191)
The bronze pieces represent a yet further departure, enabling Flynn to explore larger forms that cannot survive the ceramic process, and forms that move beyond the vessel, as well as a whole different palette of surfaces. The loose titles that Flynn uses - “Esker” vessels, after the Irish word for a winding ridge of gravel left by glaciation; “Hipped” vessels; “Camber” vessels; “Dimple” vessels - suggest the origins of her forms in landscape and the human body, and indeed whatever the scale, some have the bold fluidity of running hills and mountains or the graceful stance of draped figures. But there is also an element of textile and of the relationship of skin to body, that is animated by Flynn’s cuts and seams. Flynn likens the process of glazing, both choosing the pigment and then deciding upon a method of applying it, whether spraying or pouring, layering or allowing the glaze to fall from a ridge to reveal a metallic line, whether contrasting the inside of the pot and the outside, or wrapping the entire form in one colour, to “dressing” her pots. Essential to their birth however is experiment and an inevitable wastage. Flynn works through her ideas in clay. The forms that do not sing are discarded. They have however eminently served their purpose. The thirty-three pots on display are those that have survived not just the rigours of the kiln and foundry but Flynn’s critical scrutiny. The final body of work represents several breakthroughs. There are new glazes - the rich soft grey, for instance, both on its own and speckled - and some layered greeney grey celadons. There are pots created by a radical cut from the middle of the pot to the base, rather than from the rim, introducing a whole new arena for play. And there are the bronzes. But while experienced by Flynn and her most attentive admirers as exciting developments, the new work demonstrates also the maturing of Flynn’s intrinsic language. Flynn might have been anxious, when she first got to urban Belfast, that a promising line of inspiration developed in rural isolation in West Cork would be deflected or effaced. Instead, as this exhibition reveals, it has just grown more distinct.
Emma Crichton-Miller, 2016 author and arts journalist
Double-Esker Vessel, 2016, 19.5 cm high (SF-0162) Double-Esker Vessel, 2016, 19.5 cm high (SF-0163)
Flection Vessel, 2016, 29 cm high (SF-0178)
Spine Camber Vessel, 2016, 18 cm high (SF-0165)
Spine Camber Vessel, 2016, 24 cm high (SF-0164)
Spine Camber Vessel, 2015, 24 cm high (SF-0161)
Spine-Camber Vessel, 2016, 22 cm high (SF-0170)
Flection Vessel, 2016, 23 cm high (SF-0176)
Shoulder Camber Vessel, 2016, 21.5 cm high (SF-0167)
Camber Bowl, 2016, 20 cm high (SF-0171)
Flection Vessel, 2016, 26 cm high (SF-0179)
SpineCamber Camber Bowl, Vessel,2016, 2016,10.5 18 cm cm high (SF-0183) [SF-0173]
Shoulder Camber Vessel, 2016, 23.5 cm high (SF-0189)
Shoulder Camber Vessel, 2016, 20 cm high (SF-0188)
Shoulder Camber Vessel, 2016, 18.5 cm high (SF-0168)
Double Spine Camber Vessel, 2015, 21.5 cm high (SF-0174)
Spine Camber Vessel, 2016, 15.5 cm high, (SF-0166)
Double Spine Camber Vessel, 2016, 16 cm high (SF-0181)
Spine Camber Vessel, 2016, 19 cm high (SF-0184)
Spine Camber Vessel, 2016, 15.5 cm high (SF-0169)
Esker Vessel, 2016, 21.5 cm high (SF-0185)
Camber Vessel, 2016, 21.5 cm high (SF-0177)
Spine Camber Vessel, 2015, 23 cm high (SF-0175)
Esker Vessel, 2016, 21 cm high (SF-0186)
Double Spine Camber Vessel, 2016, 16.5 cm high (SF-0180)
Esker Vessel, 2016, 25.5 cm high (SF-0190)
Spine Camber Vessel, 2016, 15.5 cm high (SF-0182)
Shoulder Camber Vessel, 2016, 18 cm high (SF-0187)
Camber Bowl, 2016, 10.5 cm high (SF-0172)
Camber Bowl, 2016, 10.5 cm high (SF-0173)
The exhibition is illustrated online at www.erskinehallcoe.com/exhibitions/sara-flynn-2016/ Design by fivefourandahalf Printed by Witherbys Lithoflow Printing Photography by Michael Harvey