‘’It’s a shape that makes sense. Historically the form of the bowl has emerged and evolved universally, so there is an infinite array of references from cultures in China to Europe to Africa to the Middle East to bring into one’s bowls. I like to make things that are just simple, ordinary, and easy to use. Bowls are versatile, they can be held with one hand, their contents scooped up with the other. The bowl’s foot is there to prevent hot liquid from burning your hands, the heat transfers to the foot so you can hold it, but the foot can also be used for a little wire to wrap around, to hang it up, for use and display,’’ says Hylton Nel.
He continues, ‘’I need a starting idea that fascinates me in some way, and I want to see what it would look like if I did that and that. It has to interest me enough to want to pursue it; at the same time, one tries to be practical. It’s a lot of things, and it’s the whole thing. What kind of shape am I using ¬– a bowl shape, a basic shape. It can be useful, it’s a basic useable shape. And the colour? And what do I do with the edge so that it feels easy? The weight of it, the shape of it. And then the outside of the bowl, which if it’s hung on a wall wouldn’t be visible, but somehow for the bowl to be complete, it needs something on the outside, but what? The glaze inspires me.’’
‘’These funny little things are in the head while you are working and respond to the immediate stuff you are working with. It could be green paint off the brush; otherwise, you might twist and turn it into a tree with leaves, but just that green, as it were, strives to exist in its own right. How could it best manifest itself? I suppose I’m trying to make things that just exist as if they’ve always existed, and a reluctance to say ‘these hands made that’. Or, in other words, calling something into existence without actually being there for every little something of its manifestation. To have something become without, as it were, totally controlling it, ‘’ reiterates Nel.
For him, ‘’when you look at the variety of things made over time, sometimes they are made around the same time but look very different from one another; other times things are separated by time but look very similar. As far as I am concerned, they are the same, but there are variations and changes. Things are ‘of a time’, there are flows, and sometimes they shift abruptly. I only see them clearly after a while because you're in the middle at the time of making it. Time gives it the distance. After a long time, I can look at my things and think, that’s nice, but in that moment of making it, one is too close. You need time to see them.’’
The exhibition is currently running till the 13th of August 2022.
