SUSSY CAZALET, KURODA TAIZO

Cazalet’s works are characterised by bold patterns layered in blocks of warm colour, a departure from more traditional designs and muted palettes typically associated with tapestry. She utilises traditional techniques, such as flat loom weaving and organic dyeing, selecting natural fibres and hand weaving to bring her tapestries into being. Her works not only pay homage to the rich history of tapestry but also point towards its exciting potential. Kuroda is known for his simple forms in unglazed white porcelain refined over years of repeating and perfecting specific shapes. ‘With a wheel it is possible to make a shape which is almost perfect,’ Kuroda once commented.

Traditional Chinese and Korean influences are visible in Kuroda’s work, yet he manipulates and develops the shapes, imbuing them with his own style such as long slender necks, tapering bases and exaggerated curves. His cool white ceramics reject colour in an attempt to delve further into form and space, whereas colour is an essential part of Cazalet’s tapestries. Solid blocks of colour, reminiscent of Annie Albers’s practice are used to delineate her compositions. The centrepiece of the exhibition and Cazalet’s first tapestry, Kyoto Sun, is a nod to to the influence of an Eastern aesthetic, yet her work is also deeply imbued with modernism of the 50s, 60s and 70s. ‘Kyoto Sun is a culmination of memories and stories based around the balance of life, our ‘chi’—the need for bold yet calm, strong but tempered’ comments Cazalet. The distinctive colour scheme, the rich array of hot terracottas and burnt siennas express Cazalet’s affinity with the heat of the sun and the associated madness, yet tempered with linear tightness and geometry, ‘an attempt to calm the chaos.’

Kyoto Sun brings together two artists separated by tradition, geography, time and medium, yet essentially both artists use a language of essential geometric forms to achieve a harmony and balance of composition. The 10-day exhibition will include a group of Taizo Kuroda’s best know shapes in his signature unglazed white porcelain. Cazalet will present 7 of her recent tapestries and a group of 15 of her hand drawn watercolour studies.