T

he vase is a primal, functional form that reflects humankind’s earliest connections with preserving, storing, sharing or even decorating. Vases and vessels are traditionally a shape associated with women and women’s work, in part because of its use as a way to keep things or transport things, particularly food and water. Today, it continues to be a form that contemporary makers use to explore a multitude of ideas and aesthetic investigations. “The Vase invites us to reconsider the intersection between art and craft, the visible and the latent, and explores themes of the body, power, and control in the female experience,” Antonova writes. 

What is revealing about The Vase, is the wildly diverse interpretations and the many possibilities of this object as a work of art. Materials are also varied: From papier-mâche to recycled waste to brown stoneware and porcelain, each artist’s approach is unique. Australian artist, Anna-Lisa Backlünd, submitted a small, lopsided flower vase that is supported by a piece of blue-tack, Mallorcan artist Sara Regal uses recycled waste, plastic and concrete for a lumpy, multi-coloured Anthropocene vision of the vessel, Mallorcan-based artist Marion de Raucourt transforms the vessel into a scene inspired by Mikhail Bulgakov’s “The Master and The Margarita.” Dutch artist Anna Klas used recycled clay, eggshells and glass to create a large, freestanding vase that shows the beauty found in these discarded materials and Lithuanian artist Faustina Baltos’s black stoneware vase calls to mind a twirling dancer. Soft ink and pastel drawings from Carla Nicieza and a painting by Ann-Marie Manker offset the 3-D aspect of the exhibition, showing how this theme resonates beyond ceramics. At the back of the studio is a table presenting several works-in-progress by Antonova, vases in varying states of preparation, showing the process behind her own practice. 

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