Zoe Weisselberg

Zoe Weisselberg RCA

Zoe studied Fine Art Sculpture at Wimbledon School of Art in the UK.

For her project she looked a Pot Pourri, Pompadour soft paste porcelain from the Severes Porcelain factory in the 18th Century. Pot Pourri translates as rotten pot or putrid pot. She loved the lavish design, depth of colour, the gold and the ripeness that this vase represented, and the decay it was designed to conceal.

They were expensive objects, displayed as garnitures on mantlepieces in grand luxury houses acting as multi-sensory objects. They released floral fragrance to mask the stench of reality and ornamental motifs and elaborate, expensive decoration to transport the owner to more fantastical places.

She was seduced by these objects of escape and disguise, of their flamboyancy and excess, their decadence to the point of vulgarity, and of the rot and decay that they masked. It made her think of sanitization and white-washing in an attempt to remove the fetid underbelly from view and made her question how could she make the unseen seen?

She thought about the equivalent wealth and luxury home environment now, in which signs of life and death are unseen, with this vessel acting as a memento mori, a visceral reminder. An object that she hope is beautiful and seductive in a way, but excessive and vulgar in its own right. La Grande bouffe of the pot world, being an inversion of taste, symbolizing ugliness and putridness.

Instagram @zoeweisselberg

Top Centre: V&A Museum. Pot Pourri ‘Pompador’ soft paste porcelain. Above: Zoe Weisselberg. Putrefaction. Paper porcelain, glaze. Height 30cm.