THE ARTIST
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Rhiannon Petrucci currently resides in her beautiful hometown of St.Ives Cornwall, growing up she spent much of her time immersed in Cornwalls raw dynamic landscapes, and vast golden sandy beaches. She has developed an immense appreciation for the diversity and beauty of the land, an inspiration that drives her creative work and fuels a constant search to capture the beauty of those fleeting moments in nature. Rhiannon predominantly works in her studio nestled away in the rustic countryside of St.Just, where she uses Cornish stoneware clay to hand build and craft her Ancestral anthropomorphic Vases.
During her three years studying fine art Rhiannon had the opportunity to explore a vast range of art forms, throughout her creative journey she has felt a consistent draw towards exploring the symbiotic relationship between the human body and the natural world through all mediums. She eventually went onto specialise in Fashion Photography where she was able to work with the the human form and nature closely, using one to encapsulate the other. From a compositional standpoint she enjoyed the sculptural interplay of shapes between both organisms, recognising a certain harmonic relationship between the two where by both together become something more beautiful than the sum of their parts. She has carried this concept forward to her ceramics work where she has been able to explore this seemingly symbiotic relationship further, creating pieces of a more-so profound and embodied nature.
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Her original forms are built using the individual coiling technique, building in this manner Rhiannon's forms evolves organically, she works very intuitively allowing space for a dialogue to form between maker and material, where by the clay/earth seems to drive the creation of the piece at hand while the maker acts as the tool which shapes the form. This collaboration has not only been felt though technique but also manifested through the firing process used to finish the vessels, the cosmic markings and jewel like colours on the body of her pieces are created using various organic materials including the skins of fruit and vegetables, salt, sea weed and metal oxides, in an ancient alchemical process called pit firing. This technique involves a direct interplay between fire, earth, air, and the colourants, the organic matter and metal oxides vaporise in the intense heat of the 1000 degree firing and are absorbed into the porous clay body of the piece. The air flow that feeds the fire swirls and whips through the kiln decorating the pieces with the elementary vapour from the colourants, this gives way to dramatically unique results every time that have been quite literally been created by nature. So take a minute, and Let the cosmic markings etched onto the body of the Vessels bring us back to ourselves, reminding us of our perfectly imperfect divine nature and our interconnectedness with all.
It was when working with the natural elements first hand, in the form of clay, that Rhiannon discovered hercalling for ceramics and alternative firing techniques. Rhiannon's anthropomorphic forms are Inspired by ancient art, they seem to originate from the vast pool of the collective unconscious where all archetypal symbolism exist, this gives them an anachronistic feel, drawing parallels between a time now lost and the present moment.
