New works from Linda Ouhbi
The act of coiling clay involves more than just a dexterity of the hand. To take filaments of soft earth and slowly layer them to create paper-thin walls one to two feet high… this is a practice that requires the rarest mental acuity. At any moment, the vessel’s unfired structure could submit to gravity and collapse – an omnipresent risk in handbuilt ceramics. Linda Ouhbi relishes this challenge, committing to peril in pursuit of presence.
With each movement at her artist’s bench, Linda develops a dialogue between the surface of her vessels and the space they occupy. A tacit conversation emerges through this instinctive creation; a swell of clay at the base, bubbling lilts; an upward curve, rising ideas; a sudden edge, deliberate repartee.
Through this push and pull, Linda’s ceramics take on an indescribable quality: simultaneously azoic and vibrantly alive. They hum with a kineticism not often found in the inanimate. Organic shapes and angular cuts are both at home within her aesthetic vocabulary, contributing to this dualistic nature.
Though her forms are nothing short of incredible, what most strikes us are Linda’s hyper-tactile finishes. At first brush, the pieces seem to be hewn not from clay, but from rock, granite, metal – materials associated with the fortitude of architecture and spirit alike. This effect is achieved through a careful layering of mineral glazes, oxides and slips, followed by deliberate hand-carving. She achieves a “used” patina through this practice, as if each piece has already stood for a millennia, and may stand for a millennia more.
