Sogetsu at Qdos Gallery

"Drunken Growth"

The ninth annual Sogetsu Ikebana Exhibition at Qdos in Lorne is now finished.I’m glad that I managed to get there to see it as it was again a stimulating and inspiring experience.

Walking in to the gallery one gets the feeling that the exhibition as a whole reads well.There is an interesting variety of size, shape and form apparent that is pleasing.

 The Sogetsu Ikebana by Christopher James and his crew compliments Graeme Wilkies wood fired ceramics well and is done with great skill and confidence.

"Sogetsu 2012"

The tensile qualities of the Ikebana materials are utilized to make drawings in space that are sometimes subtle and  often dramatic.

The ceramics by Wilkie are sculptural statements in their own right; the forms have an understated elegance that is very pleasing to the eye.

The combination of organic and more hard-edged forms in some of the pieces work very well to set of a sense of dynamism and a Jin-Yang kind of balance at the same time and gives the work a restful energy that is not easy to achieve.

"Zazen"

Traditionally wood fired ceramics may seem a bit of hard labour today with fully automatic gas fired kilns available but looking at the subtle nuances in patina and texture one can see the rewards of the extra work.

As there were quite a few red stickers evident,a lot of the work will probably have gone by now.Even so ,in my opinion a trip to Qdos to see what remains of Graeme’s pieces would be an inspiring outing.
                                                               

Reviewed by Bjorn Holm
images © Graeme Wilkie