At Warp
Porcelain
25cm Diameter 14cm high
$540
Oddities is the culmination of a journey where in an ambition to develop something new I approached my role as one of a participant in a vital assemblage, where the works produced reflected both mine and the materials voice.
David Helmers
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Oddities
In Japan drinking from an ash fired vessel illuminated me to the potential in fostering moments of joy.
Translating joy back home into a studio aesthetic of Enchanted Vulnerability – led me to a generative approach that asks viewers to be open to the unknown in the experience of my work.
Letting go of what experiences taught me allowed for freedom to see things in a new light, and importantly for this exhibition, abandon a known process to embrace the agency of materials. Following many failed experiments, Oddities evolved.
Exploring the unknown – or material as wild energy - I wished to develop a closer relationship that in drawing me near I became considerate of interactions with the little ‘things’ involved in the process that I was developing. One that was resolved when I sought a voice within these energies.
Here I was able to allow expression of the atmospheric kiln conditions and light play on the translucent porcelain – but in using considered choices; in clay bodies, support structures to build the works, in firing cycles and fluxes used to allow the fabric embedded in the clay to fold and fuse with the clay – sort not to tame this energy but orchestrate it to develop new works.
In 2021 I participated in the Melbourne Midsummer Carnival, installing an experimental body of work at the Abbotsford Convent. This followed Solo shows in Sydney and Melbourne the previous year and the completion of a master’s degree at National Art School in 2019. I have recently been a finalist in the Tom Bass and the Deakin University small sculpture prizes.