I love porcelain, but within the porcelain family there is a sub-category of bone china, which I think is even finer quality from a material standpoint. Chris Wight, who I learned about from the awesome blog, Murmure Visible, works with bone china to create amazing table art pieces that push the boundaries of the material itself.
He casts his pieces and then drills away parts of them with a hand drill it looks like in the pictures. He does perforate the castings, which is pretty cool. Reminds me of the totally insane pieces of Tony Marsh.
Chris also appears to be at the cutting edge of new ceramic processes include water jet cutting, I’m not sure which he uses for which pieces. As he says in his statement, “I routinely combine traditional and modern approaches whilst attempting to push back the boundaries and to redefine the perception of bone china as something more than simply the sole preserve of fine tableware.”
Part of why he works in bone china, he says, is because it is pure white and has a translucent quality – much like can be seen in the above.
In his inspiration images he includes honeycombs and other insect imagery, which is evident in the piece like the above. He also includes the irregularity of bubbles pushing up against each other. It seems like natural, regular formations are of interest the most to him, which makes sense given where he comes from.
He does an excellent job of photographing his work, which I really appreciate. It’s so hard sometimes to show off amazing work when the pictures aren’t so good.
What’s even cooler about Chris is that he was born in Glasgow, where we were just three weeks ago! He grew up on the western coast of Scotland, where we explored for a week and met many artists and artisans. It’s so beautiful, lush and mountainous up there that I can imagine he drew greatly from his surroundings.
His pieces are just so fabulous – I can’t imagine how many parts he must break in order to create his whole structures like the above. These to me look exactly like the shell that comes with and protects a tomatillo. They look the same and are similarly delicate.
Tags: 3D, bone china, carving, ceramics, porcelain, table art