International artists explore the vase in storytelling

Opening tonight at Farmleigh House in the Phoenix Park is 'VASE: Function Reviewed', an exhibition which debates issues of functionality in ceramics through a series of works by Irish and international artists.

The show was opened by Hélène Bremer, Independent Curator and Art Historian.

Ever since the Grecian Urn, the vase has a tradition as a container of narrative and vehicle for storytelling. This new exhibition looks at how contemporary artists are still addressing issues of the personal and the political within and on their works. Ceramics play a huge part in all our daily lives. We wash from a ceramic sink, drink our morning tea or coffee from a ceramic mug, eat from a ceramic dish and when we want to cheer up a room we put flowers in a ceramic vase. Many contemporary artists take these daily objects and rituals and investigate them through their work.  This exhibition focuses on the vase, an object we all have in our lives, and looks at it through the eyes of the artist.

The exhibition showcases a range of objects, from the consciously matching to the gloriously mismatched, the proudly ‘functional’ to the emphatically ‘dysfunctional’, the ‘useful’ and the ‘useless’. It offers a lively and stimulating debate on form versus function within contemporary ceramics and encourages an animated debate on hierarchies within contemporary ceramics, making us look anew at the objects that surround us.

The exhibition features 29 artists from Europe, Africa and Asia presenting a wide range of approaches from the functional to the more sculptural/abstract, this exhibition provides an insight into the issues and concerns addressed by contemporary artists through clay.

Details of all the featured artists can be viewed at www.nationalcraftgallery.ie/vase.