Glorious Imperfection - the kintsugi drawings

About

In the West, when a piece of ceramic gets broken, our inclination is to repair as invisibly as possible. The Japanese feel differently, and approach the task in an almost opposite way.

They employ a technique known as `kintsugi'. Rather than try to hide the marks and cracks of breakage, they illuminate them with gold, silver, copper, or sometimes bright pigments that contrast vividly with the base colour of the ceramic.

Their thinking comes from `wabi sabi', a Japanese derivation of the Chinese Buddhist philosophy of acceptance of the imperfect and the transient nature of all things. They believe that the history of an object is better shown, and that it becomes more beautiful when celebrated rather than hidden.

"My ongoing fascination with aspects of Japanese culture led me to `kintsugi'. Some of my previous work involved minimalist drawings derived from aerial photographs of landscapes, particularly under snow. The series of `kintsugi' drawings is an attempt to create something new from a hybridisation of the two ideas, and to play with common ground between 'fine' and 'applied' arts". - David Davies

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Private view: Thursday 6th July, 18:00-20:00