In a recent essay written for Objectspace the artist, writer and curator, Glenn Barkley, described ceramics as carrying “the peculiar pseudo-zen idea that ‘stillness’ is something to be harnessed and worshipped, and that the rapid-fire cacophony of just making and then moving on is somehow antithetical to the polite impulse of the tea ceremony or the shelf.”
Laurie Steer’s practice, however, he described as having a “look at this, look at this intensity – totally self-absorbed” – and he compared it to Glenn Gould’s revolutionary recordings of Bach’s ‘Goldberg Variations’ – which he played at almost inhuman speed but with complete accuracy.
Steer, Barkley declared, “takes an idea, squeezes all he can out of it, then moves on to the next thing before the pots have even cooled from the last firing […] The total focus on that one thing at the one time you are working on it. Just go! Start-making-stop-thinking, act like someone has set a watch and this is the last thing you are going to make. Use all your powers, all your skill, while the pot sits there spinning. Then get rid of it, ready for the next thing. Then go again until time’s up.”
This characterisation will resonate with anyone who knows Laurie – so I was only half-surprised to hear about the extraordinary new works he was making, pieces that were (to borrow Barkley’s description) “like a mash-up of Coromandel anti-vax spirituality, anal dentata and the Gamorrean guards from Return of the Jedi.”
Laurie explained that he was looking for a space where the works could be shown – 6 large pieces alongside 3 smaller ones – and I realised, flattered, that he wondered if there was room at TMG.
The exhibition will run for one week only and will close on Saturday 28th September at 3pm.
