TAURUS

Philip Waldner

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(b. 1977)

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TAURUS; 2010

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oxides, acrylic gel

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60 x 84 in. (152.4 x 213.4 cm)

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ARTIST STATEMENT

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The compulsion to shape and alter the bodily form of clay is one of the most basic human impulses. One of my earliest creative impulses was to form clay into cakes, which, to my astonishment became stone hard when they were forgotten and left to dry in the sun. I remember the novel sensation of the soft clay oozing through my fingers and how hard and impermeable it felt to my small self when I thumped it against my knees after it had dried.

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As a ceramic artist, I find clay's physicality irresistible. As a child playing, its earthy sensuality, tactile malleability and immediacy were certainly attractive, but later as an artist these qualities became indispensable.

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In taking ceramic materials and applying them to canvas I stretch my artistic practice from one that is traditionally craft based to one that is fine art based. This translation allows me to explore the physicality of clay in a way that would be impossible on the much smaller traditional ceramic vessel. The marks made become a kind of autograph left by my body as it moves across the canvas.

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I work in a space between the real and the imaginary. Figures arise from my dreams and find their way onto the canvas, fighting, struggling to emerge. These figures, types and totems are expressions of a murky unconscious.