Tradition? 2012-13
Megan Randall completed her BA in 2009 at the University of Sunderland and is now undertaking her PhD with a thesis concerning “Extended Clay: Beyond Vernacular Materiality”. In her talk to us on 17th April, Megan described herself as a contemporary installation artist, whose work explores site-specific ceramics, often in unusual, abandoned spaces. She uses porcelain alongside other less traditional materials and found objects. The repetitive process of working on the wheel imbues her work with rhythm and flow and her vessels make reference to the preconceived social notions of the form but, through interaction with the public and by written and visual documentation, they are given a very different application that teeters on the edge of what is acceptable and what is potentially dangerous. During her the final year of her degree, Megan created installations in empty factories in Sheffield, her home city: a place which influences her work concerning urban culture and urban decay. An over-arching theme is ‘Entropy' - a state which is often related to the notion of order and disorder: the higher the entropy, the higher the disorder. Megan says that her work is ‘voyeuristic’ and she is interested in how people and nature have reactions to specific places. To this end, she places fine art objects into abstract and alien settings: thrown porcelain bowls, lined up in rows on the floor of a derelict factory, for example. The bowls are small and functionless, and are used to fill up the space to convey the notion of abandonment. Her aim is take photographs of the piece in situ, then document and question the actions and reactions that result, not recording the people who may view or interact with her work, but the impact that the work leaves behind. Given the locations of her installations, those people often include the homeless, drug addicts, even criminals. She says: “In the process of my work I relinquish control, instead of having a predetermined outcome of how the work will be received.” She doesn’t mind if the work is re-arranged, stolen, washed away or deliberately destroyed by her accidental audience, “just as long as it is treated with the same passion used to create it” she adds.
Entropy
In 2010 and 2011, after her degree, she completed a number of artist residencies in India and Peru. She travelled to Ahmadabad, the largest city in the state of Gujurat, India, then on to Delhi, Jaipur and Pondicherry. As a resident artist, she worked first with a master block maker, later with a company supporting abused woman, then a pottery. Her ceramic residency proved interesting when she found herself in a place with no kiln…and no clay! After experiencing the highs (she was invited to a Royal Wedding in Delhi) and the lows (she contracted Dengue Fever, a virulent tropical disease and was hospitalised for three weeks), she eventually came home to resume her creative work and studies.
Megan likes the idea of her work being ‘on the edge' - questioning the differences between what may be socially acceptable and outright criminal. Recent works have concerned subjects such as ‘Identity’, which used a variety of personal numbers and data that related to her life (passport, PINs, bar codes and so on); another work involved mailing people with cameras and instructions to take images and return them to her. Of those returned, 20% contacted nude photographs and 40% were of pets. Other works in this genre include: ‘Tradition? 2012-13’, using stencilled porcelain slip overlaid onto graffiti found in Sunderland and Hartlepool; and ‘Hell Yeah 2012’, a response to a graffiti covered wall, using water-jet cut Delft plates.
Megan has exhibited in the Baltic Centre for Contemporary Art, at the first British Ceramic Biennale and, this year, in Washington DC. Opportunity beckons and although her creative work may indeed be ‘on the edge’, her artistic future, post-PhD, looks much more secure!
Megan likes the idea of her work being ‘on the edge' - questioning the differences between what may be socially acceptable and outright criminal. Recent works have concerned subjects such as ‘Identity’, which used a variety of personal numbers and data that related to her life (passport, PINs, bar codes and so on); another work involved mailing people with cameras and instructions to take images and return them to her. Of those returned, 20% contacted nude photographs and 40% were of pets. Other works in this genre include: ‘Tradition? 2012-13’, using stencilled porcelain slip overlaid onto graffiti found in Sunderland and Hartlepool; and ‘Hell Yeah 2012’, a response to a graffiti covered wall, using water-jet cut Delft plates.
Megan has exhibited in the Baltic Centre for Contemporary Art, at the first British Ceramic Biennale and, this year, in Washington DC. Opportunity beckons and although her creative work may indeed be ‘on the edge’, her artistic future, post-PhD, looks much more secure!
RSS Feed