Remigijus Sederevičius and Giedra Petkevičiūtė are a couple of ceramists, who create from bone china and organise international bone china symposiums in Kaunas. The present exhibition reflects the two artists' creative explorations over the last few years. The connecting element of the exhibition is the material, bone china, from which all the presented works are made.
Remigijus Sederevičius will present his latest works created using 3D ceramic printers. Remigijus was one of the first to use 3D technology to work with bone china and continues to develop this field. He is constantly exploring the limits of technological innovation, materials and techniques.
In this exhibition Remigijus presents the installation "Evolution of the pot shape". The idea is based on the 1917 book On Growth and Form by the Scottish mathematician and biologist D'Arcy Wentworth Thompson, who understands the variety of biological forms not as a jumble of chaotic shapes generated at random, but as geometric shapes that can be described by physical and mathematical principles. This theory gave rise to the idea of comparing the evolution of ceramic forms in the time line from the Narva style of the 4th century BC to the forms of the vases of S. Ludwig Strol and the bone china vessels of Jiesia of 1935. The timeline is twisted into a logarithmic spiral, with the silhouette of a prehistoric pot at the beginning of the spiral and the shape of a modern vessel on the opposite side. A 3D modelling program generates the interfaces between the silhouettes of these objects. By experimenting with the silhouettes of the vessel shapes, it is possible to see how the logarithmic spiral creates new shapes and to observe the compatibility of the shapes or the opposition of the shapes in the mutations of the form.
Giedra Petkevičiūtė presents her works made of bone china, which are linked by a certain urban theme. "In my work I try to reflect the city I see, the city I remember and the city that has been lost. To do this, I use simple clean forms and add elements of 'noise' that reflect my personal relationship with it." That noise is graphic elements created either by line, drawing or by breaking up the form itself. The forms are inspired by the buildings of Kaunas' distinctive art deco architecture. Other works reflect recent themes of isolation and fragility. In Basilica and Republic, nichrome wire is used alongside bone china, which, on the one hand, breaks the porcelain, but at the same time holds it in place and prevents it from falling apart. These works are inspired by the now forgotten and unfinished Soviet-era hotel Respublika, or rather by the process of its demolition. The concrete 20-storey ghost building with its empty window holes has been waiting for demolition for almost 30 years. According to the artist, these works were created in the midst of this demolition process, and she tries to reveal nostalgia in her work, links with the past, transformations from old to new.
