Lauren Winstone regards her recent work as akin to what minimal artists of the 1960s termed 'Literal' objects. Bringing this concept to craft practice and treating the pot as a primary form to be explored for its "object-ness", Winstone describes these works as "presenting an object as a perceptual problem in the viewing encounter."

Humming on a windless slope is a continuation of a series started in 2009. Winstone explains that her concept, which relates to the tension between physical realities and the optical experience of objects was explored in two different ways. "In one series a number of basic pot forms were the subject of a perceptual encounter. Deliberately combining the processes of forming and then un-forming the pot generated 'wild' and often troubling outcomes. The process of construction and the process of deconstruction became embedded images in the work; the works rather than illustrating technical virtuosity illustrated almost the opposite; base handling concepts and the variation of these different 'modes of activity' made visible in the pots themselves."

 

"In the other series the relationship between planes and volumes were explored in varied combinations; planes and volumes, planes and planes, volumes and volumes. These works became an attempt to test relationships between 'parts' and 'wholes'. Whole forms were broken down into simplified parts." Winstone's most recent works are extending upon this approach by taking the rim of pot, a valued formal component of pottery, severing it and treating it as a solid form suggesting "a more autonomous relationship with the pot on which it sits."

 

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Lauren Winstone is an Auckland based artist

Lauren Winstone, humming on a Windless Slope, 2010.