Pilar Rojas
My ceramic work is based on the idea that objects are carriers of meaning. Beyond their particular function, objects with a capacity to contain become symbols that represent receptiveness. Psychologically, they reflect a view of the world in which each of us is a holder of transcendental substance. A group of units calls attention to the individual in relation to the others.
In the sequence entitled Halved, each item is like the section of a solid that reveals its hollow core. They invite reflection on the space inside, outside and around themselves. One could consider several ways of reading the objects: as an incomplete whole, from the inside out, in relation to one another within the space they occupy, or as a group of units that extends to include ourselves.
Their monochrome surfaces are not attached skins but the natural edge of the solid. These surfaces are only the result of light falling on the form's edges and highlights the manner in which these units both differ and have similarities.
They are members of the same family and represent a sequence. "Empirical categories" as Levi Strauss describes "can be used as conceptual tools with which to elaborate abstract ideas and combine them in the form of propositions". Halved is a progression of images that presents an open definition, where items in a group may include opposing principles: individual/social, natural/cultural, organic/synthetic, machine made/hand crafted.
These objects propose that form and function can become symbolic through association. We confer meanings on craft objects by reflecting in them our social history and personal psychological world. These meanings invest the object with aesthetic value. The craft object in itself becomes the subject of artistic inquiry.
