• teuru.org.nz

Congratulations to Wendelien Bakker, recipient of the Premier Award at this year’s Portage Ceramic Awards for Sea of Grass.

Read the statement about the winning piece below from this year’s judge, Kate Newby : “This work wriggles out from any expectations of sculpture, opening up an entirely new experience of space and time. What struck me immediately was how both the porcelain and the documentation felt so generous. As the unfired porcelain slowly dissolves into the grass, the stacks of black-and-white prints diminish as well, creating a parallel between the physical material and the image of the work. Both are offered freely, one returning to the earth, and the other to the hands of the audience. It’s a quiet yet profound gesture, inviting people to take part in the life-cycle of the piece, even outside the gallery.

Sea of Grass is in constant flux, always changing, always happening. You can’t pin it down, because it exists in multiple forms and at varying stages of transformation. The porcelain may dissolve into the grass, but it still lives on through the documentation. It forces us to question: Where is the work? Is it in the porcelain? The photographs? The space in which the porcelain disappears, or the homes where the prints eventually end up?

What I love most is the sense of impermanence. The piece doesn’t demand to be preserved or fixed in time. It embraces the ephemeral nature of materials and the environment, echoing cycles of creation, decay, and renewal. It’s refreshing to encounter a work that isn’t trying to outlast its surroundings, but instead integrates itself into them.”