As one of the UK’s foremost ceramicists Claire Curneen’s work is distinct for its figuration. She is also a Senior Lecturer at the Centre for Ceramic Studies, Cardiff Metropolitan University.

Spanning nearly 20 years as a practicing artist, Curneen’s works, ranging from small scale porcelain pieces to a large terracotta figure installed on the exterior of a Guildhall, explore grand themes about the body and the human condition.

Notable for her application of hand-building, pinching and applying clay in patches that registers the artist’s hand and flesh in the surface of the clay, Curneen produces highly visceral works, which tap into of our deepest desires, fears and mysteries. Referencing Roman Catholic imagery and ideology and early Italian Renaissance paintings such as Piero Della Francesca’s ‘Baptism of Christ’, these figures bear bold narratives of saints, martyrs and rites of passage punctuated by often delicate yet dramatic totems to death, re-birth and the sublime.

In 2011 Curneen received one of the Arts Council of Wales’s most prestigious accolades, a Creative Wales Ambassador Award, and has embarked upon a new body of work inspired by research she will be conducting into the National Museum of Ireland’s collections. Her award also includes use of a drawing studio at The Mission Gallery, Swansea.

Curneen’s work can be seen in over 20 public collections, including the Victoria & Albert Museum, London; National Museums and Galleries of Wales, Cardiff; Taipei Ceramics Museum, Taiwan and the Crafts Council, London.

‘Guardian’ 2012, Porcelain, cobalt, glaze, gold lustre

The title for this piece extends my ongoing interest into religious iconography of Italian Renaissance Painting, in particular ‘Tobias and the Angel’ 1470-1475 by Verrocchio. The story explains how the young Tobias, sets out on a long journey to recover a debt for his blind father, he meets another traveller, the Archangel Rapheal, who guides him and protects him. Guardian explores some of these themes focusing on the intimacy of the relationship. The figure is printed with rich cobalt blue, like chinese blue and white porcelain, which communicates the historical imprint in which a ceramic object can hold, charged with a sense of its own history. Like ‘Tobias and the Angel’ it is witness to the changing world. This figure stands looking forward, it holds back a part of itself in order to act as a guardian, a protector, potent and rich in meaning.

Claire Curneen, “Guardian” 2012, porcelain, cobalt, and gold lustre, 29.5″.

Claire Curneen, “Blue” (detail), 2013, porcelain, cobalt, gold luste, 24 x 21 x 6″.

PHOTO: dyxum.com, Claire Curneen Exhibition by gouldina1, on Flickr

PHOTO: dyxum.com, Claire Curneen Exhibition by gouldina1, on Flickr

PHOTO: dyxum.com, Claire Curneen Exhibition by gouldina1, on Flickr

PHOTO: dyxum.com, Claire Curneen Exhibition by gouldina1, on Flickr

PHOTO: dyxum.com, Claire Curneen Exhibition by gouldina1, on Flickr

PHOTO: dyxum.com, Claire Curneen Exhibition by gouldina1, on Flickr

PHOTO: dyxum.com, Claire Curneen Exhibition by gouldina1, on Flickr

PHOTO: dyxum.com, Claire Curneen Exhibition by gouldina1, on Flickr

PHOTO: dyxum.com, Claire Curneen Exhibition by gouldina1, on Flickr

UPCOMING PROJECTS

Aug 20–Oct 19, 2014
To This I Put My Name at Harley Gallery, Nottinghamshire, England

The figures in To This I Put My Name are in turn serene and violent, beautiful and raw.

Curneen’s figures are inspired by myth and legend, drawing upon religious iconography and her study of art history at the National Museum of Ireland. Angels and saints are decorated with rich glazes or deep smudges of inky colour, reminiscent perhaps of fine porcelain. Other figures are left unglazed and unadorned; like reimagined figures from Ancient Greek vases.

‘To This I Put My Name’ is a Ruthin Craft Centre and Mission Gallery Touring Exhibition.

-via clairecurneen.com