Jessica Harrison

Jessica Harrison was born in St Bees, UK in 1982. She lives and works in Edinburgh, Scotland. Harrison graduated from Edinburgh University with a practice-based PhD in Sculpture in 2013, funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council. In 2015 she was artist in residence at the European Ceramic Workcentre in the Netherlands, returning in 2017 to undertake a second residency.

In 2017 Harrison was commissioned by the Jerwood Charitable foundation to create an installation for the exhibition Jerwood Makers Open, which toured the UK in 2107 and 2018.

She has shown her work in exhibitions worldwide including The Precious Clay: Porcelain in Contemporary Art, Museum of Royal Worcester, UK; Dismaland, curated by Banksy, Weston-Super-Mare, UK; Broken, Jupiter Artland, Edinburgh; FLASH, Galerie LJ, Paris; CERAMIX, Bonnefanten Museum, Maastricht in collaboration with the Sèvres, Cite de Céramique; Between Poles and Tides, Talbot Rice Gallery, Edinburgh; Figuriens Fortællinger, Museum of Ceramic Art Denmark; Urnen, European Ceramic Workcentre, Oisterwijk; Un Bal Masqué. XVIIE Sièle at art Contemporain, Le Chateau de Nyon; Sexy Ceramics, Keramiekmuseum Princesshof, Leeuwarden; and Body & Soul; contemporary international ceramics, Museum of Art and Design, New York.

Princesshof Ceramic Museum, Netherlands I the University of Edinburgh Art Collection, Scotland I Pallant House Gallery, UK I the Royal Scottish Academy, Scotland I the New Art Gallery Walsall, UK I Musée Ariana, Genève, CH

Found Figurines

2015-2018

Jessica Harrison's Found Figurines sind Überarbeitungen von in Serie gefertigten Zierfigurinen, die die Künstlerin bei eBay-Auktionen ersteigert hat. Harrison gestaltet diese Objekte durch erneutes Glasieren und Brennen in radikaler Weise um, teilweise unter Verwendung von bis zu zehn Schichten Glasur und vier Bränden für ein einzelnes Werk.

Die Künstlerin benutzt die Figuren wie Testkacheln für neue Glasurrezepturen. Keine zwei Stücke sind gleich, da Harrison die physikalischen Grenzen des Schlickergusses auslotet. Tatsächlich überlebt nur ungefähr die Hälfte der auf diese raue Weise bearbeiteten Figuren, bei den anderen führt die starke Spannung der mehrfach aufgetragenen Glasuren und der erneute Brand zum Punkt des Kollapses oder zur Explosion.

Die Figurinen, die diesen Prozess der Überarbeitung überstehen, drängen zur Abstraktion, wobei die Haltung und die Bestimmung der Figur unter der dicken Glasur trotzdem sichtbar bleiben. Gleichzeitig entsteht eine eigenartige Balance zwischen dem Vertrauten und dem Fremden, zusammengehalten durch eine filigrane Hülle.

Jedes Werk trägt den originalen Titel der eBay Auktionsliste als Hinweis zur Geschichte des Objekts. Unterschiedliche erwünschte Eigenschaften in oft unverständlicher Art aufgelistet, uninteressante Seriennummern und fehlerhafte Schreibweisen und Massangaben leisten alle ihren Beitrag zur Herkunft der Figurinen.

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Bone China Figures

2015

Die Bone China Figures aus gefärbtem Knochenporzellan sind handgemacht. Sie stammen aus einer Werkreihe von Arbeiten, die sich auf existierende massenproduzierte Schlickerguss-Figurinen, eine vor allem in England von namhaften Firmen wie Royal Doulton und Coalport hergestellte Art von Keramik, beziehen.

Aus der Distanz betrachtet erinnert die Silhouette der handgemachten Figuren der heimisch populären Kaminsims-Dekoration; bei näherer Betrachtung jedoch wirken sie zunehmend grotesk und missgebildet, da die schnelle und krude Art der Gestaltung sich in den nur grob angedeuteten Posen zeigt.

Diese Werkgruppe, die auf den ursprünglichen, massenproduzierten und idealisierten Darstellungen von Frauen beruht, stellt diese in einen glaubhafteren realen Raum und lässt uns deren Platz als blosse Dekoration im Heim und die Beziehung zu deren Körper neu überdenken.

Benannt nach den originalen Figurinen, nach denen sie geschaffen wurden, erweisen diese Werke dem Erfolg der Bone China Figurine in jüngster Vergangenheit alle Ehre, während gleichzeitig auf das Absurde der Pose und des Kostüms in ihrer standardisierten Darstellung von Frauen hingewiesen wird.

Found Figurines

2015-2018

Jessica Harrison’s Found Figurines are re-workings of mass-produced decorative figurines that have been sourced by the artist from online auction site eBay. Harrison radically reshapes these objects through a process of re-glazing and re-firing, sometimes using up to 10 layers of glaze and 4 firings on a single object.

Acting almost as test tiles for new glaze recipes, no two pieces are the same as Harrison pursues the physical limits of the fine slip cast bone china. In truth, only around half of the figures survive this harsh process, the rest obliterated by the excessive tension of the added glaze, re-firing to the point of collapse (and sometimes explosion).

The figurines that do survive are pushed towards abstraction in their disfiguration, but the pose and purpose of the figure underneath the excess glaze remains visible, presenting a peculiar poise between the familiar and the alien, held together by a delicate shell.

Each piece is titled after the original eBay auction listing, alluding to the previous history of the object. Various desirable qualities listed in incomprehensible ways, uninteresting serial numbers and inaccurate spellings and measurements each contribute to a background into which these figures can be placed.

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Bone China Figures

2015

Hand made in coloured bone china clay, the Bone China Figures are a series of works based on existing mass-produced, slip cast bone china figurines made by companies including Royal Doulton and Coalport, a particularly English type of ceramic ware.

From a distance the hand-made figures recall the silhouette of the popular domestic mantelpiece ornament, however in closer proximity become increasingly grotesque and misshapen as the quick and crude way in which they were formed is revealed in their roughly shaped poses.

This series draws the original mass-produced idealized representations of women on which they are based into a more plausible, physical space, rethinking their place as decorative pieces in the home and their relationship to the body.

Titled after the original figurines on which they are based, the pieces pay homage to the success of the bone china figurine in recent history, whilst at the same time holding to account the absurdity of pose and costume in it’s standardized representation of women.

Working with a wide variety of materials from porcelain and paint to marble and digital collage, my practice is based on a long-term exploration of the fluctuating relationship between the body and the space/things around it.

How we look at, touch, perceive and navigate the world around us defines the shape of the body, and in turn, the shape of the body defines our interpretation of the space/things around us. As technological advancements in everyday life increasingly shift the way we look at and experience the world, definitions of the body are also changing, whilst at the same time seemingly inexorably tied to traditional ideas of gender, sexuality and boundary.

Informed by ways of looking, and by extension, different ways of knowing, I work with found objects, scavenged images and systems of knowledge to propose re-imaginings of these definitions. Part coping mechanism, part learning strategy and part suggestion of an alternative shape to our perception of things, my practice explores the space between looking and touching and the effect these ways of perceiving have on each other.

My practice is process led, hinged on a fundamental fallibility of the body and types of knowledge that can be generated through mistakes and inexperience in both making, understanding and methods of sharing. I have a particular interest in the fallibility of observation and the gap between the seen and the felt, the visual and the tactile. For me, this is the space in which my sculpture, and perhaps all sculpture, is situated - as something that happens in-between and amongst the body and objects, a part of both, but neither fully one nor the other.

To negotiate this space I prefer to build by hand where possible as it opens up the making process to the viewer in the finished object, with the potential to become almost performative in the descriptive quality of the surface. My work explores the spaces between maker and viewer, object and image, background and foreground, digital and analogue – indefinite spaces where the most interesting things often happen. Mistakes reveal gaps between knowledge and action, between making and viewing, opening up a dialogue that allows a way into subjects that those with a flawless finish do not have. It is at points of error that as a viewer it is possible to see the body of the maker, and as a maker, where it is possible (perhaps unintentionally) to allow yourself to be seen.