Skirt

Skirt, 1997, is a high-fired stoneware work, made at the European Ceramics Work Centre during a residency by the artist in 1997. The residency was part of a wider project that concluded with the Sainsbury Centre exhibition Slip: Artists in the Netherlands and Britain working with Ceramic (2002). This exhibition subsequently toured to the Franz Hals Museum.

Gernand makes abstract sculptures in a wide range of materials. He has stated: ‘If sculpture is concerned with animate form, it is expressed through a tension between its stillness and gesture.’ [1] This succinctly sums up Skirt, where the artist expresses the form of a garment, usually malleable made in woven fabric. However, Gernand renders this ‘garment’ in ceramic. This starts off pliable and malleable but once fired turns to stone.

He continues: ‘For me, the practice of sculpture is fuelled by paradoxical conditions. One is the sense in which sculpture is an attempt to embody conditions of the animate, gesture for example, into a state which is fundamentally still and mute. Another is the fascination with the process of working with materials which ultimately find completion in an object, the drive to keep things fluid while knowing that there must be an end, a death of action which is the object. And then there is the paradox of presenting you with digital/virtual images (on this website) of objects whose main claim is to simply exist materially.’ [2]

Bruce Gernand (b.1949), an American-born sculptor and draughtsman, studied at Pennsylvania State University, 1966–8; graduated in philosophy at San Francisco State College, 1968–70; attended City and Guilds of London Art School, 1971–2; Central School of Art and Design, 1972–4; and Royal College of Art, 1975–6. He was a Senior Lecturer and headed the Sculpture Area on the B.A. Fine Art Course (1997-2007), and subsequently became a Senior Research Fellow there.

Read More