Video (QuickTime) GUY_edit_2011_m...mov | Download (226MB) Available under University of Tasmania Standard License.

Abstract

Ceramic Surgery (March - April 2010) was the first exhibition in an ongoing collaborative project between Adam Geczy and Jan Guy. It radically alters the perception of bone china in a way that comments on genetic engineering, myths of perfectibility and humanity's mediation of the natural world.

As the phrase suggests, bone china contains animal bones whose calcite lends the ceramic its translucency. In this series of works the kinds of bones that are used are specifically chosen. Here exotic and endangered Australian species have been cast out of the bones of kitchen poultry: a chicken, a turkey and some quail. Thus these birds have been extracted from their inauspicious origins, and in a process that humorously calls to mind a welter of stories of recreation from the frog prince to Frankenstein, they are remade into rare birds of great beauty. But the birds are white and frozen in time - the consolation of such a process (a comment on Botox perhaps?).

In their immaculate hand-made glass domes, these specimens are also engaged in a language of museology. But in no overly critical way – rather they suggest that museums are the melancholy storehouses of what have become increasingly rare and extinct objects, the last places where we can go to imagine the world that was and could have been.

Jan Guy is an artist and writer who graduated from Queensland College of Art and gained an MVA from Sydney College of the Arts, University of Sydney. Guy maintains a broad practice and interest in ceramics with a specific focus on sculptural and installed works. Her personal research is presently concerned with relationships between the haptic senses and virtual spaces.

Guy has been the recipient of a National Craft Acquisition Award and her work is in the collection of the Museum and Art Gallery of the Northern Territory. In 2009 Guy was a member of the organising committee for the 1st Australian Ceramics Triennale. She also curated Young Guns, an exhibition of emerging international ceramics artists and established CELSIUS, an online journal for the crafts and design.

Item Type:	Video
Authors/Creators:	Guy, J
Keywords:	Jan Guy, Art Forum, University of Tasmania, Modern Art, 21st Century, Australia, ceramics, sculptural and installed works, haptic senses, virtual spaces
Publisher:	University of Tasmania
Collections:	University of Tasmania > Tasmanian College of The Arts > Art Forum Lecture Series
Additional Information:	Copyright © 2011 University of Tasmania
Item Statistics:	View statistics for this item

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