Contact
ingagumma@hotmail.com
Stones and ceramics, stones as ceramics, ceramics as stones
In my artistic practice I approach ceramics through an interest in nature, geology and human behavior. By using clay, minerals and collected material I find a conceptual context to the earth, the nature and to geological phenomena. The weathering and erosion of stones and other natural elements or forces are my inspiration for the shaping of my objects. The sea, the water, the frost and fire. The power of the natural forces fascinate me: the heat from the core of the earth, the power of a volcanic eruption, the miracle of creation and transformation.
Stones, cliffs and other rock formations have influenced my art through the last years. Especially how they look, their shape or structure that depends on how they were formed by the nature. Mostly it has been basalt, which is common in Iceland. Basalt is rather soft and weathers down much quicker than, for example, granite. Their shapes are not only caused by the powers that creates them, the volcanic process, through eruption and cooling. Also by other natural powers that shape them afterwards like weather or erosion, for example caused by rolling in a river or washed by sea waves.
My aim has not been to mimic the natural ones when I sculpt stones in clay. The stones I make have a different essence than natural ones. They are my artwork. By using some of the same minerals as in the natural stones my hands as the power of shaping the material like some kind of erosion power, and finally the kiln to transform it into ceramic, my work could be seen as a transformation from material to stone.
