Stone Green + Watson

Brett Stone Donna Green Kati Watson

Stone Green + Watson 30 January - 27 February, 2021

© Utopia Art Sydney

STONE Out Of The Ashes is the series of bowls that came out of 2020. After bushfires, after COVID, after Trump, these very shiny bowls make us reflect on what has passed, where we are now, and hopefully be filled with the bounty of what is to come.

The glazes for these bowls all contain wood ash, which has been used for millennia in pottery. Ash has many symbolic meanings across all cultures: complete destruction, the end of life, aftermath.

In 2020 COVID19 forced us into isolation, and in a time when we couldn’t hug our friends and family, to be able to hold something hand-made gives us a connection with another person.

cat. 1, Brett Stone, Out Of The Ashes 20, 2020, Stoneware, 7 x 22 cm

cat. 2, Brett Stone, Large COVID Sharing Stack 1, 2020, stoneware, 20 x 12 cm

cat. 3, Brett Stone, Out Of The Ashes 1, 2020, stoneware, 15 x 20 cm

cat. 4, Brett Stone, Out Of The Ashes 13, 2019, stoneware, 22 x 11 cm

cat. 5, Brett Stone, Out Of The Ashes 7, 2020, stoneware, 10 x 18 cm

cat. 6, Brett Stone, Out Of The Ashes 16, 2020, stoneware, 19 x 20 cm

cat. 7, Brett Stone, Out Of The Ashes 11, 2020, stoneware, 6 x 21 cm

cat. 8, Brett Stone, Out Of The Ashes 18, 2020, stoneware, 12 x 23 cm

cat. 9, Brett Stone, Out Of The Ashes 10, 2020, stoneware, 6 x 20 cm

cat. 10, Brett Stone, Large COVID Sharing Stack 2, 2020, stoneware, 7 x 20 cm

cat. 11, Brett Stone, Reflection 1, 2020, stoneware, 7 x 20 cm

cat. 12, Brett Stone, Out Of The Ashes 14, 2020, stoneware, 6 x 20 cm

cat. 13, Brett Stone, Out Of The Ashes 19, 2020, stoneware, 11 x 20 cm

cat. 14, Brett Stone, Out Of The Ashes 3, 2020, stoneware, 11 x 23 cm

cat. 15, Brett Stone, Out Of The Ashes 2, 2020, stoneware, 13 x 21 cm

cat. 16, Brett Stone, Out Of The Ashes 15, 2020, stoneware, 10 x 25 cm

cat. 17, Brett Stone, Out Of The Ashes 12, 2020, stoneware, 8 x 19 cm

cat. 18, Brett Stone, Out Of The Ashes 9, 2020, stoneware, 8 x 23 cm

cat. 19, Brett Stone, Out Of The Ashes 17, 2020, stoneware, 9 x 24 cm

cat. 20, Brett Stone, Out Of The Ashes 5, 2020, stoneware, 9 x 23 cm

cat. 21, Brett Stone, Out Of The Ashes 6, 2020, stoneware, 8 x 27 cm

GREEN While smoke and ash had filled the Sydney air over summer, it was the COVID epidemic that gave Donna Green an extended stay in Sydney and the opportunity to make these pieces which capture the mood of the times so well with haunting beauty.

cat. 22, Donna Green, Touch, 2020, stoneware and glazes, 45 x 50 cm

cat. 23, Donna Green, Embrace, 2020, stoneware and glazes, 30 x 36 cm

cat. 24, Donna Green, Listen, 2020, stoneware and glazes, 38 x 32 cm

cat. 25, Donna Green, Time, 2020, stoneware and glazes, 40 x 50 cm

WATSON Self Portrait I was thinking about making work and how much it is a reflection of yourself, and what’s going on in your life, and how what’s going on in your life at any one moment is a reflection of the entirety of your life. Because it’s a culmination. Every moment is a culmination of all the moments that have gone before.

So really, in my mind, every pot that anybody every makes, or any artwork that anybody ever makes, is a form of self portrait, in an abstract sense. Possibly, this introspection and train of thought came about because of the events that have been unravelling over these past 12 months since my last show. The year began with a great sense of doom regarding the change in climate and what it was doing to Australia in particular. The great loss of animal and plant life, not to mention the human suffering affected me just as it did everyone else. I felt like we were at the end of time. Then COVID came along and gave me more time to think about my life and those two thoughts came together and I started to think about my life in time, reflecting on what had made me and why I make pots.

The main reason I make pots is because I love beauty and it settles me and slows my mind down, and I love food for the same reason. I love the vessels that food is served in. And from that, I love what a vessel means – both as something beautiful and as a container. And then it becomes a work of art because it has these meanings that are important to me. But some of the special characteristics that I particularly love about vessels are how they relate to the body and fit very neatly into a very physical and intimate activity.

Because my work is very personal. Because it’s about what I think is beautiful, my subjective understanding of beauty and form and the intimacy of eating and what feels good in the hand – its very physical as well as being a strong personal aesthetic – I feel like its only honest to recognise how subjective that is. I feel like

I’m striving to some universal form of beauty, but I also recognise that there is no such thing.

We all think that are own lives are very important but in reality we are just specks of sand. And so in grappling with those ideas, the idea of the self and my life and the big issue of the world being in such dire trouble, I decided to recognise possibly the selfishness of making pots for me, the fact that it is my little tiny work in the world which really has no consequence at all, if I’m to be honest about it it’s really only about me, I decided to make a body of work that recognised this and to make something that recognised my tiny life, my little grain of sand, and try to make something beautiful out of it.

I throw forms that I love, with gay abandon. I wanted pots that reach upwards shaking off the earth on delicate feet like votives because that sort of striving and reaching and searching is something that stirs me in art and ceramics in all its forms. I sat down and decorated all the pots, often up to 20 in a day, so I did them quite quickly. And I thought about a particular time in my life and tried to gesturally create something that represented my feelings, my deepest feelings when I thought about that time.

Kati Watson 2020

cat. 37, Kati Watson, Self Portrait Series 1, 2020, porcelain, 11 x 16 cm

cat. 38, Kati Watson, Self Portrait Series 2, 2020, porcelain, 12 x 18 cm

cat. 39, Kati Watson, Self Portrait Series 3, 2020, porcelain, 11 x 18 cm

cat. 40, Kati Watson, Self Portrait Series 4, 2020, porcelain, 8 x 20 cm

cat. 41, Kati Watson, Self Portrait Series 5, 2020, porcelain, 13 x 20 cm

cat. 42, Kati Watson, Self Portrait Series 6, 2020, porcelain, 11 x 16 cm

cat. 43, Kati Watson, Self Portrait Series 7, 2020, porcelain, 11 x 15 cm

cat. 44, Kati Watson, Self Portrait Series 8, 2020, porcelain, 9 x 12 cm

cat. 45, Kati Watson, Self Portrait Series 9, 2020, porcelain, 9 x 21 cm

cat. 46, Kati Watson, Self Portrait Series 10, 2020, porcelain, 9 x 19 cm

cat. 47, Kati Watson, Self Portrait Series 11, 2020, porcelain, 9 x 13 cm

cat. 48, Kati Watson, Self Portrait Series 12, 2020, porcelain, 10 x 22 cm

cat. 49, Kati Watson, Self Portrait Series 13, 2020, porcelain, 12 x 22 cm

cat. 50, Kati Watson, Self Portrait Series 14, 2020, porcelain, 15 x 19 cm

cat. 51, Kati Watson, Self Portrait Series 15, 2020, porcelain, 14 x 22 cm

cat. 52, Kati Watson, Self Portrait Series 16, 2020, porcelain, 10 x 24 cm

cat. 53, Kati Watson, Self Portrait Series 17, 2020, porcelain, 8 x 24 cm

cat. 54, Kati Watson, Self Portrait Series 18, 2020, porcelain, 15 x 21 cm

cat. 55, Kati Watson, Self Portrait Series 19, 2020, porcelain, 12 x 22 cm

cat. 56, Kati Watson, Self Portrait Series 20, 2020, porcelain, 11 x 21 cm

cat. 57, Kati Watson, Self Portrait Series 21, 2020, porcelain, 10 x 25 cm

cat. 58, Kati Watson, Self Portrait Series 22, 2020, porcelain, 11 x 22 cm

cat. 59, Kati Watson, Self Portrait Series 23, 2020, porcelain, 14 x 19 cm

cat. 60, Kati Watson, Self Portrait Series 24, 2020, porcelain, 9 x 13 cm

cat. 61, Kati Watson, Self Portrait Series 25, 2020, porcelain, 9 x 12 cm

cat. 62, Kati Watson, Self Portrait Series 26, 2020, porcelain, 10 x 15 cm

cat. 63, Kati Watson, Self Portrait Series 27, 2020, porcelain, 10 x 5 cm

cat. 64, Kati Watson, Self Portrait Series 28, 2020, porcelain, 8 x 16 cm

cat. 65, Kati Watson, Self Portrait Series 29, 2020, porcelain, 9 x 20 cm

cat. 66, Kati Watson, Self Portrait Series 30, 2020, porcelain, 8 x 16 cm

cat. 67, Kati Watson, Self Portrait Series 31, 2020, porcelain, 6 x 8 cm

cat. 68, Kati Watson, Self Portrait Series 32, 2020, porcelain, 6 x 7 cm

cat. 69, Kati Watson, Self Portrait Series 33, 2020, porcelain, 5 x 8 cm

cat. 70, Kati Watson, Self Portrait Series 34, 2020, porcelain, 7 x 10 cm

cat. 71, Kati Watson, Self Portrait Series 35, 2020, porcelain, 6 x 10 cm cat. 72, Kati Watson, Self Portrait Series 36, 2020, porcelain, 7 x 10 cm

cat. 73, Kati Watson, Self Portrait Series 37, 2020, porcelain, 7 x 10 cm cat. 74, Kati Watson, Self Portrait Series 38, 2020, porcelain, 7 x 10 cm

cat. 75, Kati Watson, Self Portrait Series 39, 2020, porcelain, 8 x 11 cm

cat. 76, Kati Watson, Self Portrait Series 40, 2020, porcelain, 8 x 11 cm

cat. 77, Kati Watson, Self Portrait Series 41, 2020, porcelain, 9 x 11 cm

cat. 78, Kati Watson, Self Portrait Series 42, 2020, porcelain, 9 x 16 cm

cat. 79, Kati Watson, Self Portrait Series 43, 2020, porcelain, 9 x 15 cm

cat. 80, Kati Watson, Self Portrait Series 44, 2020, porcelain, 9 x 19 cm

STONE

cat. 26, Brett Stone, Out Of The Ashes 4, 2020, stoneware, 7 x 12 cm

cat. 27, Brett Stone, Reflection 2, 2020, stoneware, 10 x 15 cm

cat. 28, Brett Stone, Black Jonquil 1, 2020, porcelain, 8 x 13 cm

cat. 29, Brett Stone, Black Jonquil 2, 2020, porcelain, 8 x 13 cm

cat. 30, Brett Stone, COVID Sharing Stack 4, 2020, porcelain, 8 x 13 cm

cat. 31, Brett Stone, COVID Sharing Stack 8, 2020, porcelain, 7 x 11 cm

cat. 32, Brett Stone, COVID Sharing Stack 2, 2020, porcelain, 5 x 11 cm

cat. 33, Brett Stone, COVID Sharing Stack 5, 2020, porcelain, 4 x 12 cm

cat. 34, Brett Stone, COVID Sharing Stack 3, 2020, porcelain, 6 x 12 cm

cat. 35, Brett Stone, COVID Sharing Stack 1, 2020, porcelain, 6 x 10 cm

cat. 36, Brett Stone, COVID Sharing Stack 5, 2020, porcelain, 4 x 12 cm

Utopia Art Sydney 983 Bourke St Waterloo NSW 2017 Telephone: + 61 2 9319 6437 email: art@utopiaartsydney.com.au www.utopiaartsydney.com.au © Utopia Art Sydney