Esther Stone, Bedroom View. Handmade paper, watercolour paint, embroidery thread, stained coffee backing card. 100mm x 150mm.
Photo Credit
Detail of ceramic vessels by Sofia Santos, 2023. Image courtesy of the artist.
Photo Credit
In Inner Landscapes, artists Esther Stone and Sofia Santos bring their own perspectives to the ways in which craft can collapse time, intergenerational knowledge, and environmental influences into physical objects, objects that connect us back to the practices of ancient times.
Esther Stone’s Wharenui o Taku Hinengaro - Meeting House of My Mind draws on memories from the artist’s childhood as a way of storytelling and making visual decisions, intuitively, with materials. Stone’s practice is influenced by her spiritual connection to her kainga–something which helps the artist to understand her grievances and issues with the place she calls home. Named Postcards From My Memories, the main body of work in this series uses hand-made paper and embroidery to create small scale images. Paper can be torn, thread can be frayed, and watercolour moves and stains, just like memories and feelings.
Sofia Santos experiments with a fragility of a different kind, that of clay and all that clay encompasses. Serving as a canvas for the experimental aspect of glazing in Santos’ practice, each form is an exploration of surface, texture and colour, all the while preserving the ancient qualities inherent to ceramic vessels. The natural elements referenced in her work reflect where she has spent most of her life, the ocean, as well as echoing the traditional Portuguese vases whose shape and proportions Santos’ eye is used to.
Historically overlooked for its everyday use and gendered hierarchies, craft is enjoying a renewed interest for its immediate, tactile means of connecting with the individual behind an object’s creation, along with the long histories of process and technique informing each unique piece. Here, Stone and Santos communicate personal histories through the abstracted lens of clay, pigment, textile and form, creating an opportunity for viewers to relate from their own personally informed positions.
In Inner Landscapes, artists Esther Stone and Sofia Santos bring their own perspectives to the ways in which craft can collapse time, intergenerational knowledge, and environmental influences into physical objects, objects that connect us back to the practices of ancient times.
Esther Stone’s Wharenui o Taku Hinengaro - Meeting House of My Mind draws on memories from the artist’s childhood as a way of storytelling and making visual decisions, intuitively, with materials. Stone’s practice is influenced by her spiritual connection to her kainga–something which helps the artist to understand her grievances and issues with the place she calls home. Named Postcards From My Memories, the main body of work in this series uses hand-made paper and embroidery to create small scale images. Paper can be torn, thread can be frayed, and watercolour moves and stains, just like memories and feelings.
Sofia Santos experiments with a fragility of a different kind, that of clay and all that clay encompasses. Serving as a canvas for the experimental aspect of glazing in Santos’ practice, each form is an exploration of surface, texture and colour, all the while preserving the ancient qualities inherent to ceramic vessels. The natural elements referenced in her work reflect where she has spent most of her life, the ocean, as well as echoing the traditional Portuguese vases whose shape and proportions Santos’ eye is used to.
Historically overlooked for its everyday use and gendered hierarchies, craft is enjoying a renewed interest for its immediate, tactile means of connecting with the individual behind an object’s creation, along with the long histories of process and technique informing each unique piece. Here, Stone and Santos communicate personal histories through the abstracted lens of clay, pigment, textile and form, creating an opportunity for viewers to relate from their own personally informed positions.
