Mary Gamble Barrett

To me, the interaction of colors flowing together in glazes, or light coming through porcelain, a window, or in an icon, signifies consciousness and transcendence of the physical world to the metaphysical. Clay is strong yet easily broken. The porcelain vessel, thin walled and translucent, evokes a sense of the duality of strength vs. fragility. The broken vessel reveals its interior, suggesting inside vs. outside, presence vs. absence, permanence vs. impermanence. My earlier porcelain sculpture from vessels which have been cut up and reconfigured or nested, are preserved and reborn as a new kind of relic. I am concerned with the juncture where the present becomes the past, and the past meets the present through memory. My recent work, egg tempera paintings and ceramic tiles, is inspired by sacred geometry (found in mentor Bill Daley’s sculpture and in Byzantine Iconography) and in the magic of color and clay. The creation of these works has been both meditative and cathartic for me, after the passing of my husband and best friend. This work reflects my concern with dualities in life: order/chaos, inside/outside, physical/ metaphysical(spiritual) and combines chaotic swirls of color wash with the structure of symbolic geometry.
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