Persephone (Rites of Spring II): C.32A & B-2013

Place(s) associated

• Chiswick ⪼ England

Acquisition and important dates

Method of acquisition: Given (2013-11-25) by Goodison, Nicholas and Judith

Dating

21st Century, Early
Elizabeth II
Production date: AD 2012

Note

Nicholas Rena (b.1963) studied architecture at Cambridge from 1982-88 before completing an MA in Ceramics and Glass at The Royal College of Art in London in 1995. His oversize vessel forms reflect his architectural background and a preoccupation with space, and are sometimes presented in groups (see C.32A & B-2013). The clay body is often colour stained, sometimes with brightly coloured interiors, and is sanded and burnished to a marble-like smooth surface. Rena was nominated for the Jerwood Applied Art Prize in Ceramics in 2001. He has exhibited internationally and his work can be seen in many public collections.

Text from object entry in A. Game (2016) ‘Contemporary British Crafts: The Goodison Gift to the Fitzwilliam Museum’. London: Philip Wilson Publishers: Nicholas Rena was first introduced to the world of ceramics at school through his art teacher, Gordon Baldwin (b.1932). He went on to study Architecture at Cambridge but, following a brief period of practice, returned to ceramics, completing an MA at the Royal College of Art, London in 1995. He subsequently established a studio in London, where he still lives and works, developing a series of monumental vessels that draw on archetypal domestic and ritual pottery forms – the jug, the bowl – but re-scaled as compelling works of sculpture. His ability to activate different spatial environments with these forms was recognized by an invitation to participate in a show in 2013 at the Sir John Soane Museum in London entitled Marking the Line: Ceramics and Architecture in which this work was shown. Nicholas Rena: ‘For those of us making a certain type of ceramic vessel, one of the central metaphors in such work, which is perhaps too obvious to state, is that these vessels are empty. It is a powerful metaphor – to produce a body of work about containment which is intended to remain resolutely empty.’