My new exhibition Experiments With Light represents a radical new direction in my work. Ceramics is a notoriously difficult medium in which to innovate. And yet innovation is essential to prevent artistic process from growing stale. This recognition sparked a five-year period of creative exploration, which also coincided with a series of momentous life events – the covid pandemic, moving to Barcelona for two years and becoming a father.
Perhaps as a reaction to the general chaos around me in these years, I began to experiment with letting go of fixed ideas in my art, and seeing where the process of sculpting might lead me. Disregarding concepts and ideas, I focused on building, and letting each piece tell me how it should come together. Function followed form, and ideas emerged through the process.
The city of Barcelona – with its layers of graffiti, spontaneous colour, and overlapping histories – seemed to encourage this more elemental way of working. Barcelona possessed a vibrancy and immediacy that I wanted to bring into my work. While the surface of many works might seem to be linked to Australia, the undercoat of each and every one is Barcelona.
And so Experiments With Light is just that. The result of much blundering in the dark, performing experiments… until, finally, I found some light again. The name of the exhibition also presents an interesting new synthesis. Light is the new format, while ceramics has become the medium of experimentation.
– Clary Akon 2025
