Searching for Celadon/ Expansion Series

Each work begins with expanding polyurethane foam, a commercial building material defined by its speed and its disposability. The foam form authorless, generated by the material’s own expansion is captured in a multi-part plaster mould, slip-cast in high-fire porcelain, and glazed in celadon. The glaze research programme spans firing atmospheres: celadons re-engineered for oxidation in an electric kiln, as shown, alongside reduction firings pursuing the classic jade depths and iridescence of the tradition.The finished work comprises of fifty casts arranged in a wall-based grid, each carrying a different shade every colour the single word ‘celadon’ is made to contain so that the category is tested against its own members. The labour ratio is the hidden subject: an object that came into being in seconds is held, attended to, and slowly rendered through months of mould-making, casting, firing and glaze-testing. The work sits at the threshold between two material economies one engineered for obsolescence, the other for permanence and asks what a vessel is when its cavity precedes its maker.