Pottery that came out as sculpture

30 August - 19 October 2014

The works of the Faroese artist, Guðrið Poulsen (b. 1961) have a sculptural and uniquely artistic look, which is true to clay as a medium, but always challenges its limits. She trained as a potter in Finland and Iceland and, since the 1980s, has moved away from pottery’s more traditional expression, which is so often bound up with a practical function. It is a route that many of her peers have also taken.

In contrast to the artistic figurative tradition, which has been strongly represented on the Faroe Islands, Guðrið Poulsen’s idiom is an abstract one. At the same time, though, there are obvious references to both architecture and the organic shapes of nature. Her ceramic work is constantly characterised by an ambition to develop the clay’s artistic expression. She is also profoundly fascinated by existential issues: life versus thought, the transient versus the constant, the microcosm (The Little Room) versus the universe. These themes are given powerful expression in the current exhibition.

The exhibition presents both recent works from 2012-2013 and a number of older works.