Johan Creten: Ceramics and drawing

 

Johan Creten

Johan Creten: Exhibition view

Johan Creten was making ceramics before clay became a fashionable material for fine artists; so he commands a certain respect for working with these materials for so long. However it is his drawings that I want to showcase for this blog, especially as I'm also someone who makes ceramics and draws. However, unlike myself, he treats the drawn element of his work as a discrete area of practice. Each drawing is a stand alone image, one that often occupies the space of drawing in a similar way to how his ceramic objects occupy architectural space. But as soon as I write this, I realise that he can also occupy space in a more painterly way. Whichever way is foregrounded, I think its worth having a look at the relationship between his drawings and his ceramics, even if only to help myself think through how and why I use the same materials. 

In the drawings above it is a sense of insides shaping outsides that most interests me. They feel as if the internal marks compact together to locate the outside. In this way I personally then find these drawings excellent vehicles for carrying human form. Instead of thinking of drawing a body from the outside appearance, it helps me to think that you could draw a body by using internal analogies, some marks being bones, others muscles and others internal organs. 

Johan Creten: Drawings

There is a blunt directness about his drawing that I find very powerful and he uses the materials of drawing in such a way that they remain what they are, whilst also being able to represent ideas for ceramics. 

Johan Creten: Ceramic forms

Creten works on a scale that is a reflection of his status and now works in bronze as well as clay. I am very aware of the type of technical support and equipment needed to make ceramic and cast metal objects of this size. It is perhaps best if I therefore concentrate on presenting his drawings rather than his sculptures. In fact I find some of his sculptures overly finished and too predictable. He has achieved a high level of control over the years and I'm very aware that in my own ceramic work I don't have that control but its the surprise of not knowing that keeps things fresh for myself and I still see that in his drawings.

Ceramics Now has an article about his recent work which you can access here.

See also:

Drawing and ceramics

Drawing using clay

Candice Lin