Critics tackle the strangeness of Doig’s paintings in different ways. Some think his residency in Trinidad helps explain things. Others muse about his Scottish / Canadian upbringing. Even if his motifs resist explanation, Doig’s use of them is well recognized. “Everything seems ordinary and completely weird at once. It’s a portrait of the quietly inexplicable drama within each human life.”
Recent auction prices have persuaded some that ceramics are “emerging from the shadow of other artistic mediums”. Lee’s work helps to explain why. The unglazed surfaces of her painstaking works have an ancient feel while their refined asymmetric shapes speak to a modern aesthetic. Says the writer, they “definitely aren’t rural pots”. Images are here.
During and after WW2 a tussle was going on in British ceramics. The prevailing style was somewhat rustic. Vienna-born Ries was a modernist, “indomitable” and had not the slightest intention of making sturdy pots. Her refined shapes and elegant glazes rhymed with the post war spirit of progressiveness and paved the way for modern studio ceramics.
Sekgala, working after apartheid had been abolished, was interested in its lingering impact on “identity”. Most acclaimed are his images of young people who, like himself, had been displaced by the homelands policy. “Fences, roadsides and derelict buildings are recurrent motifs … [people] searching for a sense of belonging and protection in a torn landscape, establishing a sense of hope for a future not yet built.”