Profile: Kirsten Coelho

KIRSTEN COELHO TRANSFIGURED NIGHT

A deep black. Then turning into the gallery proper, before one’s eyes have adapted, a long stretch of illuminated paleness appears, seemingly floating in mid air. It leaves an imprint - an afterglow - on the eyes and brain.

Words by Patsy Hely Patsy is an artist and educator.

Weeks after my visit, this powerful image remains. Kirsten Coelho’s Transfigured Night, 2017 is an installation of over 70 porcelain vessels displayed on a 14 metre-long grey platform. The forms are domestic in nature, utilitarian, but installed so the objects are closer to eye level than table height, suggesting that looking rather than handling is of prime importance. The colours are pale, some glazed, some not, and they range in size from small bowls to large basins. The work overall is ambitious in scale and execution.

Transfigured Night was part of the 2018 Adelaide Biennial Divided Worlds with the divide here being between night and day, between the known and the unknown. Coelho has cited Russell Drysdale’s 1945 The Drover’s Wife and Henry Lawson’s story of the same name as catalysts for her thinking. These references enrich the artwork lending it a particularly local character. Individual objects are lit from above, washed with cool silvery light that picks out their varying shapes while also creating shadows and distortions that convey a similar sense of foreboding to that found especially in Lawson’s story.

In previous work, Coelho has grouped different vessel types together, but here she mobilises a virtual compendium of ceramic objects: bottles, flasks, bowls small and large, cups, beakers, goblets, basins, flat dishes and more. The ceramics historian Phillip Rawson suggests that all ceramic forms spawn a host of related types 1 and Transfigured Night engages with this idea where the lighting and the positioning of the works causes shadows in some places to project onto a form an altered version of its own shape. In this

way the number and range of shapes seen along the platform appears to multiply and suggest that the work is not just exploring an Australian narrative, but is feeling out the metaphoric possibilities of the evolution and dissemination of ceramics historically.

Coelho has a keen interest in both the local and global histories of ceramics2 and the way Transfigured Night is presented suggests her familiarity with museum displays, where objects with a variety of cultural references are brought together in one space as happens at the Victoria and Albert Museum in London, or the Smithsonian Museum in Washington. An artwork as accomplished as this invites many readings with maritime museum displays of shipwreck assemblages,where objects of various origins have lain still and undisturbed in darkness for centuries,also coming to mind. These assemblages, commonly from ceramic-laden ships trading between China and foreign ports, share a number of characteristics with this work – and they have been a rich source for ceramic historical research.

Individual forms in Transfigured Night, as many shipwreck forms do, carry a variety of cultural inflections, some appear to have their roots in Chinese ceramic form, others in Scandinavian (Coelho’s own heritage) vessel types. Where the glazes of shipwreck vessels have been smoothed and made pearly by exposure to deep-sea currents, Coelho’s surfaces have a similar tactile feel, having been polished by hand or softened by glaze. Apart from the variety of cultural reference, and the great variety in types of forms, there are as well differences in the character of individual forms. Some, such as the large basin forms, are highly refined, large but light, whereas others seem exploratory, new objects in transition. This mix of the perfect and imperfect gives vitality to the work and suggests an ongoing engagement with ideas. All of the works are beautifully made and seamlessly glazed, though process in the form of throwing rings, not usually seen in Coelho’s work, are here laid bare by light.

There is a sense that this has been a very self-conscious project, it looks to both her past explorations and future possibilities, new types and forms are being explored and different ways to make ideas and influences cohere are clearly being sought. Transfigured Night is a complex artwork and it makes a brave move by engaging with a broad range of ideas and commanding such a large space with confidence and assurance.

1. Phillip Rawson, Ceramics: an appreciation of the art, University of Pennsylvania Press, Philadelphia, 1984, 92. 2. Personal communication, 2nd June, 2018.