The art of ceramics

A handout of one of the artwork by Michael Rice on exhibit at the Pullman Dubai Deira City Centre hotel lobby (Courtesy: Pullman Dubai Deira City Centre)

It’s been a busy week this week but one of the things I managed to attend was the opening of Michael Rice’s exhibition in the lobby of the Pullman Hotel Deira City Centre.

On Sunday, the artist who crafts beautiful ceramic sculptures from clay, which he fires and glazes in a variety of techniques to create wonderfully different finishes, opened his show with a live performance of pottery throwing set to music.

It was fascinating to watch Rice put a huge lump of clay (mixed with some sand from the Emirati desert to give texture) on the wheel and then in a matter of minutes shape a seemingly perfect vase-like form.

Although the performance was just for show, the intention was to draw attention to the difficult technique of clay sculpture and ceramic and to the pieces that have been set up in the hotel lobby since May 20.

From functioning bowls to art pieces and coriolis-shaped sculptures, the exhibition might be quietly understated but if you consider the skill needed to craft these items, it is very impressive.

“I like to think this work is accessible to most people,” says Rice. “It also has a long history and lineage and it is important that is maintained. The history of ceramics is very much rooted in the Japanese tradition of wabi-sabi where less is more and we appreciate the beauty of the ordinary. That really appeals to me.”

Using very correct forms with random finishes, there are contrasting elements in all the works.

“I’m always into dialetics where we have the thesis and the antithesis and the combination of those, which brings synthesis. I like to use eternal forms,” explains the artist, who we first met when he was exhibiting at the Rotunda Gallery at the American Univeristy of Dubai. “I’m hoping people connect with my work on a level which is aesthetic, as well as archetypal, because the forms have a timeless quality. Like something you might find if you rediscovered the ruins of a once great civilisation; they are new yet familiar.”

Rice is exhibiting his work as part of a new initiative from the hotel to exhibit both established and emerging artists in their public spaces in a kind of artist residency programme.

Laurent Chaudet, the general manager of the hotel says: “A hotel must be part of the community in all senses; we recruit a lot of people, we generate a lot of waste, so we must respect all aspects of the society and not forget the culture. I personally think the lobby of the hotel is a perfect place to exhibit art.”

* Michael Rice’s exhibition will be running until June 20th at the Pullman Dubai Deira City Centre hotel lobby in partnership with CASPAIOU, Dubai International Art Centre and Repton School Dubai.