Stages of Relationship --- Ceramics

Title: Stages of Relationship
Medium: ceramic, wood board
Size: 80 x 20 x 12 cm (whole piece)
Date of completion: 2023

This project explores the idea of how a relationship degrades over time. I utilised the unique hardening characteristics of ceramic clay to convey a relationship that has ended due to struggles with bonding and adjusting. The hardening of the clay felicitously symbolises the diminishing ability to change and adjust for each other in a relationship as it gets gradually more difficult to shape and combine. The cylinders in the state of raw clay is easily adjustable, depicting the beginning of a relationship where both people are willing and capable to change for better accommodation of each other. As the clay naturally proceeds to become leather hard, it becomes challenging to piece together, which the process will inevitably introduce cracks and breakages to the shape. This represents the arguments that appear in a relationshiphe broken pieces represents the irreparable cracks despite having “solved” an issue within a relationship. The final phase features one single bone dry cylinder with visible distortions which represents the emotional scars after a relationship, and that two people have separate. The phases featured in this piece are preserved through spraying of water, which naturally leads to moulding of the softer clay, this process symbolises no matter how hard someone attempts to maintain the state of the relationship, the underlying flaws will still inevitably surface.