KAORI TATEBAYASHI

Ceramics and the natural world have consistently been Tatebayashi’s passion. Modelling by hand and using a metal knife she made in art school, Tatebayashi sculpts unglazed white stoneware plants with startling precision. Her work combines the academic observation of scientific specimens with the feel and movement of an artist responding to the natural world. She only works from life, never from memory or photographs, creating portraits of plants and flowers gathered in her studio. Tatebayashi fires her ceramics unglazed, accentuating the plant’s natural forms.

The theme of this exhibition arose from the Tatebayashi’s deepening involvement with gardening, a passion of over 10 years, which revealed another side of nature: while beautiful and apparently gentle, nature has huge power. ‘When you’re gardening, you think you’re in control,’ Tatebayashi observes, ‘but soon you realise you’re the one who is controlled and ruled by the garden. The soil, the plants, the weather, the microcosm itself decide what grows in your garden, not you.’

Still Life presents a life-size immersive tableau in which audiences will become part of Tatebayashi’s ceramic installation. Weeds and ivy burst from the shadows and crawl across the walls of the gallery towards the light, reclaiming what appears to be a dilapidated house. Ceramic fruit on pewter platters, a ceramic loaf of bread and a slice of a ceramic melon are laid out on an abandoned dining table in the middle of the second room; the presence of humans is felt through their absence. ‘I’m trying to take back control, to preserve time by stopping the clock on flora and fauna’ comments the artist. Moments of their fleeting lives are captured within clay, echoing the French for ‘still life’—‘nature morte’—‘dead nature.’ Clay ends its organic life in the firing process and what remains - the ceramic - is a memory of the object whose shape it now takes on.

Tatebayashi’s love of nature remains unchanged, but the vision is wilder. The exhibition explores nature’s unstoppable power against anything man-made, celebrating its ability to regenerate and rebound. Often overlooked and unloved, weeds, shrubs and a giant wall of ivy take centre stage, showcasing their remarkable vitality in a world which focuses on perfect flower heads and cultivated gardens. These are modelled from plants found in her garden, never from shops, which, according to the artist, appear over cultivated, too perfect. Imperfections are what she looks for; ‘imperfections are part of life.’

Still Life celebrates nature as ‘the ultimate artist’ in Tatebayashi’s words. The plants choose her and in turn she captures and organises them in her Still Life, taking back control for a brief moment. The exhibition will run from 10th November to 15th December 2023