British artist Edmund de Waal makes written and ceramic work "concerned with ideas of collecting and collections; how objects are kept together, lost, stolen or dispersed. His work comes out of a dialogue between minimalism, architecture and music, and is informed by his passion for literature." You may well have heard of his book The Hare with the Amber Eyes.
His current show at Pallant House gallery, ‘if we attend’ draws on his personal relationship to the work of David Jones (1895 – 1974). De Waal first encountered encountered the art and modernist poetry of David Jones while studying English at The University of Cambridge at Kettle’s Yard. "When he later started working with porcelain, it was Jones’ work that profoundly influenced his approach to making."
‘if we attend’ (2015), a white, wall-mounted vitrine with translucent glazing and 16 porcelain vessels, is a new piece produced especially for this exhibition. It references the calming slowing down effect of Jones’s poem
The Anathemata: ‘We already and first of all discern him making this thing other. His groping syntax, if we attend, already shapes…’.
The work, displayed alongside two other porcelain works will be accompanied by a series of poems by David Jones, creating a contemplative space reflecting the nature of the work.
Edmund De Waal – If We Attend
Pallant House Gallery
