25 June - 25 July 2003

ALEV EBUZZIYA SIESBYE (b. 1938)

Alev in her studio

The explorations and developments in studio ceramics through the last few decades have been as exciting as any that have taken place across the whole art scene, and that in an age of radical discovery and expression. A maelstrom of activity in which indulgence, eccentricity and provocative extreme have, at times, attracted so much attention as to seem the norm. Sculpture, by either ceramists evolving from a more traditional usage, or by sculptors discovering clay as a new medium has become so much the convention that in some colleges the making of vessels has practically disappeared. An expression of the part that has given way to new directions. The vessel, the space containing hollow form common to all ceramic cultures for millennia as the most perfect expression of ceramic art is obsolete. Or so one could be led to believe. Alev Ebüzziya Siesbye is one of those artists whose use of the familiar and traditional, not out of conservatism, but from strong personal vision, conviction, passion and involvement with material and technique, proves and demonstrates that there is far more to art than contemporary development and fashionable trend.

Since the 60's she has made bowls. Variations on a deceptively simple theme that are as sculptural as anything more abstract or figurative, and as powerful in presence as that which is far more monumental in scale. The changes from one to the next are slight but constant. The variations endless. Like Morandi's still lives or Joseph Albers' squares one leads to the next, ever changing, ever refining, always offering fresh inspiration. Art ever growing out of art. There are no exploitive gestural flourishes, no dateable quixotic devices. They are always refined and self-contained presences that excite the intellect as much as the senses and are born of deep thought and controlled feeling. They are some of the most sophisticated vessels to have emerged out of the entire studio ceramic movement, and when they really resonate, when everything comes together, they transcend refinement and sophistication and intellect and artistry and sing with a purity that is truly spiritual.

Michael Robinson