Porcelain, considering the frame
- llatham222
- Jan 15
- 2 min read
Updated: Jan 28
The reliquary incribed 'EX CARNE S. CAROLI BORROMEI' fascinates me because of its unusual spiky frame. I have been considering framing devices since reading Cynthia Hahn's book 'The Reliquary Effect' and considering the reliquary as a framing device or as Hahn writes: 'enframement by means of a container' (Hahn, 2017 p. 8).
I created the frame from a rolled slab of porcelain clay. I chose porcelain because I liked the idea of it being white on firing; a blank canvas from which to decide on its next steps.
In considering the frame of the artwork as the 'reliquary', the containing device, I have been seeking artists who create works which attribute their form, and, to a great extent, their meaning, to the frame.
American artist Nina Hartmann's framing devices dictate the form of her mixed media works and most certainly dictate how we view the combined photographs and sculptures
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Hartmann's work is both personal and political; in the way that politics is personal. Her images are often taken from government leaflets, message boards and many other official and un-official sources of information. Manipulated through AI, she then works to preserve them within framing devices which each have their own symbolic shape. In an interview for Cultured Magazine, Hartmann notes: 'So many of the shapes are in conversation with each other in some way, they might be a negative or inverted version of another piece. The body of work starts to function as its own unique system, with each shape working like a letter in an alphabet' (Hartmann, 2023). I like the idea that eventually I will be able to create a body of work in which each element seems to be in conversation with each other. Hartmann's work leads me to consider methods of display and how the print might take on the shape of its frame or container, or even environmnent.
I spoke to the artist Natalia Mustafa at Woolwich Print Fair this year about her piece Window and Cloud which was part of a larger installation of sculptural works.
I was inspired by the way the aluminium squares frame the photo etchings to the point of blocking all but a small strip of window which makes us peer in at the works.
I think the piece would be much better if the prints in their metal were hung alone on the wall, or even propped on a shelf. For me, they are lost within the larger white frame.
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