A full house of interested members attended the ASV meeting held on June 10th to see and hear the presentation by Iranian ceramic artist Elnaz Nourizadeh. Born in Tehran in 1985, Elnaz arrived in Melbourne in 2003. Pottery and ceramics were her early interest and passion and in Iran she was fortunate to study under the supervision of Maryam Salour one of Iran’s leading ceramists and sculptors. Elnaz continued to work as her assistant until she came to Australia. She learnt sculpting, hand building and the techniques of glazing from Maryam as well as how to control kilns (electric and gas) and two types of firing (reduction and oxidation). Haj Abdollah Mehri one of the greatest masters of traditional pottery in Iran showed Elnaz the finer points of throwing. Elnaz studied Industrial Design at the university in Tehran and took extra ceramic courses about glaze chemistry and types of minerals and dust used in glazes and their effects, and then started to do ceramic work and also pottery and ceramic teaching as a full time job.
"I love lines and surfaces" she said " and I think it’s because of my industrial design background, but recently I have noticed I like to show movement in my sculpture and my ceramic vessels. I make mostly ceramic tableware and when I have a good idea I create a sculpture. I experiment with different glazes and forms on my tableware" she said. "Each of my sculptures manifest a period in my life; emotions, everything I feel, see and experience. Overtime my sculptures have transitioned from statements about restrictions in my life to ideas of freedom and breaking the barriers. I get my ideas from everyday things I see in the streets, music I listen to, the news I read or a new artwork that catches my eye. I prefer clay as my main medium because it gives me freedom and allows me to create any shape I desire and refine the shape as it dries. In this period of my life most of my feelings and emotions were affected by the move to the new environment and my sculptures demonstrate all previously hidden feelings"
In "Camouflage" - the first sculpture Elnaz made in Melbourne – she tried to display her feelings about all the people around her in that period.
"I have shown a person who prefers to close his eyes and camouflage his humorous, cheerful and colourful personality behind a grey mask that can still reveal some of his character through a little smile. But my new sculptures have different feelings, in the Punch Out, I tried to represents a person (the bird) breaking out from the rules and boundaries and leaving them behind for a free life. Also you can see the same reaction in both of my Break Out sculptures, in one of them the man surrounded in the box is pushing the box to break out and in the other one the lady has broken the box and come out of it and her hands have turned to wings ready to fly" she said . "I try to use more neutral and earthy colours on my sculpture but as I like colours, occasionally I use some bold colour to change the focus point or add extra meaning and sometimes use different textures" she said. Elnaz was then asked by potters at the meeting to give more specific information as to how she achieved some of the textured surfaces on her work. "In my Punch Out sculpture" she said " I dissolved the clay with vinegar, to get a rusty and rough texture on the surface. First I made my sculpture and when it completely dried, before the firing, I applied vinegar on the surface as dry clay absorbs vinegar more and gives a better result. Different types of clay have different amounts of sodium carbonate or sodium bicarbonate. Sodium carbonate reacts with acetic acid (CH3COOH) in vinegar and releases carbon dioxide, the carbon dioxide bubbles on the surface to make this texture, when the surface was dry I fired it once then used raw minerals and oxides like nickel, manganese and Chromium oxide to paint it. I mixed them with water and a little transparent glaze. I sprayed a very thin layer of transparent glaze on the surface but I brushed clear glaze inside the holes to make them glossy. I also used glossy glazes on the bird to move the eyes from the holes to the bird. I’ve used one of my mixed glaze combinations to get the blue green colour pattern".
Michael Meszaros thanked Elnaz for her most interesting presentation, and she received enthusiastic applause for it from all present.
Elnaz can be contacted at. Elnaz.Noury@gmail.com
See more examples of her work on the web. www.elnaz.info
"I love lines and surfaces" she said " and I think it’s because of my industrial design background, but recently I have noticed I like to show movement in my sculpture and my ceramic vessels. I make mostly ceramic tableware and when I have a good idea I create a sculpture. I experiment with different glazes and forms on my tableware" she said. "Each of my sculptures manifest a period in my life; emotions, everything I feel, see and experience. Overtime my sculptures have transitioned from statements about restrictions in my life to ideas of freedom and breaking the barriers. I get my ideas from everyday things I see in the streets, music I listen to, the news I read or a new artwork that catches my eye. I prefer clay as my main medium because it gives me freedom and allows me to create any shape I desire and refine the shape as it dries. In this period of my life most of my feelings and emotions were affected by the move to the new environment and my sculptures demonstrate all previously hidden feelings"
In "Camouflage" - the first sculpture Elnaz made in Melbourne – she tried to display her feelings about all the people around her in that period.
 |
| Two Faces of Camouflage |
"I have shown a person who prefers to close his eyes and camouflage his humorous, cheerful and colourful personality behind a grey mask that can still reveal some of his character through a little smile. But my new sculptures have different feelings, in the Punch Out, I tried to represents a person (the bird) breaking out from the rules and boundaries and leaving them behind for a free life. Also you can see the same reaction in both of my Break Out sculptures, in one of them the man surrounded in the box is pushing the box to break out and in the other one the lady has broken the box and come out of it and her hands have turned to wings ready to fly" she said . "I try to use more neutral and earthy colours on my sculpture but as I like colours, occasionally I use some bold colour to change the focus point or add extra meaning and sometimes use different textures" she said. Elnaz was then asked by potters at the meeting to give more specific information as to how she achieved some of the textured surfaces on her work. "In my Punch Out sculpture" she said " I dissolved the clay with vinegar, to get a rusty and rough texture on the surface. First I made my sculpture and when it completely dried, before the firing, I applied vinegar on the surface as dry clay absorbs vinegar more and gives a better result. Different types of clay have different amounts of sodium carbonate or sodium bicarbonate. Sodium carbonate reacts with acetic acid (CH3COOH) in vinegar and releases carbon dioxide, the carbon dioxide bubbles on the surface to make this texture, when the surface was dry I fired it once then used raw minerals and oxides like nickel, manganese and Chromium oxide to paint it. I mixed them with water and a little transparent glaze. I sprayed a very thin layer of transparent glaze on the surface but I brushed clear glaze inside the holes to make them glossy. I also used glossy glazes on the bird to move the eyes from the holes to the bird. I’ve used one of my mixed glaze combinations to get the blue green colour pattern".
Michael Meszaros thanked Elnaz for her most interesting presentation, and she received enthusiastic applause for it from all present.
Elnaz can be contacted at. Elnaz.Noury@gmail.com
See more examples of her work on the web. www.elnaz.info
Report by Gordon Robertson
No comments:
Post a Comment