I have an insatiable instinct to construct and achieve balance.   My work is based around process.  I find that I have had a natural connection with clay all my life.  I can remember digging at a vein of yellow orange earthenware in our family garden at the age of five.  I made a set of spoons and baked them in the sun.             

     Functionality in my work allows me to explore ideas of relationship and service. A vessel can enter your home and become part of a daily ritual.  You press your lips against it and it sustains you with life. I enjoy the intimacy of making objects that fit the hand and function to provide energy, comfort and satisfaction. 

     The history of ceramics is closely knit to the evolution of our species.  I am interested in the power of that history and how it correlates to societies from around the world. Referencing these histories gives the work context.  It provides a platform to leap into the current atmosphere and dialogue that is happening between the ceramics community and the contemporary art world.

     The materiality of ceramics and its combination with glass through fire and heat drives my desire to experiment and push boundaries.  I am interested in the chemistry of materials.  This questioning of why reactions are happening at a molecular level allows the work to move forward in a conscious way.

     My art naturally organizes itself into different series.  This system of making allows me to better understand my studio practice and research process.  The current body of work includes the Vessel, Noumena, Humanity and Acirema. They have been developed while attempting to process my inner thoughts. 

     Vessel.  The idea of the vessel is inseparable from the thriving force that is humanity.  The various processes of making form is a meditation to me. There is an exchange between me and the clay changing it at a molecular level so it emits positive energy from its core. Through combining wheel thrown, slip cast and hand sculpted elements in my work I am free to express various of emotions and ideas. The material science and malleability of ceramics and glass allows endless exploration opportunities in the consideration of color, sheen, durability, texture and final aesthetic. 

    Noumena. This Series seeks to create a dialogue with an unknowable force.  Noumena as a philosophical idea comes from Immanuel Kant.  The word derives from the Greek, Noumenon; that which is perceived.  Through his exploration in metaphysics and enlightenment Kant describes noumena as; a thing as it is in itself, as distinct from a thing as it is knowable by the senses through phenomenal attributes.  This unknowable essence of what a thing truly is at the core of all things.  When we are surrounded by physical projections that are attainable through the senses we must rely on our perception to guide us to reality.  As an artist, I record my observations of time and space in an attempt to create a pathway to this other realm.

     Humanity.  This Series relates to the human form and the human quest for solidarity, peace and understanding of the universe.  I am the youngest of 7.  After three sisters were born to my parents two sons were born conjoined sharing a liver. They passed on within a week.  Three years later my brother was born and three after that I entered earth.  I cannot help but wonder if I am a reincarnation of one of them. Themes of family, relationship, birth, death and conjunction are reoccurring in my mind.  Working through abstraction of the human form allows me to speak to the metamorphosis of humanity within our knowable history.

     Acriema.  This series comments on my countries knowable history, its perceived national identity and our energetic vibration as a society.  My Father’s Father was a Human Computer in the Army during World War II.  He worked on the Manhattan Project in Los Alamos, New Mexico. They split the atoms of uranium and plutonium to create a force that was previously just a theory.  It ended a war and the technology changed the course of humanity.  This family connection with the not so distant past provides me with a point to jump from when thinking about humanities obsession with warfare, technology and moral compass.  My desire to reference these moments come at a time when the world has forgotten the sheer destruction we are capable of.  To provide a better future, we must not forget the past.

  As a maker and a builder, I reflect and reference what is happening in the world. Through the inclusion of history and a connectivity with the current I use art to record time and space into material. The work serves as a physical, knowable and approachable vehicle that expresses my thoughts and the rhizomes that have lead me to this reality.   My curiosities guide me through the meditation of the making process.   

I am always seeking growth.


-Matthew Jakielski