Pot Head (4)

Medium: Clay, Gesso, Charcoal, Pencil, Ceramic Pot

The fourth in a collection of small sculptures with heads emerging from inside found ceramic pots or jars.

Made from air dried clay and finished with charcoal and pencil. The head fits into the rim of the small black glazed ceramic pot and can be removed. The black pot has a matt swirl pattern spirally around the glossy black surface of the pot.

Their distorted face appears from the rim of the pot like ectoplasm released from a funeral urn. The idea for the Pot-Heads started with my thoughts about archaeological digs from the pre-Christian era where found pots reveal the ancient funeral practice of cremation on a pyre with the ashes buried inside a funerary urn.

The works play with the idea of the body replaced by an empty container and of the soul being trapped inside domestic objects.

The expression on the uncanny face seems angry or uneasy as if they have been disturbed from their sleep.

The work is part of an ongoing interest in human remains, bog bodies and funeral practices.