Gzhel

Gzhel is thirty villages near Moscow where ceramics have been made since the seventeenth century, and one colour: cobalt. Before firing it is black, after firing it is blue, and the painter lays the stroke without seeing how it will come out. Hence the main quality of Gzhel painting: the stroke is made once, with pressure from dark to light, and it cannot be corrected.

The series takes Gzhel without the crockery. What remains is the stroke itself, blue on white, taken to the size of a wall: a rose, a leaf, a curl, a lattice. Four works, each a single pattern, and in each you can see the stroke begin dense and run into transparency. Gzhel here is not about the teapot but about the blue.

Relief on artboard gives the stroke volume: it is modelled and then painted in cobalt pigment from saturated to whitened. The white ground is layered, like glaze. Over it, epoxy resin, which makes the blue as deep as if fired. The edition is numbered.

A series for a kitchen, a dining room, a bathroom, for white interiors that need a single colour. Blue on white is a pairing that does not age.