Geoffrey Palmer
Contemporary Ceramics
Bound
Solo Exhibition
Yrellag Gallery, 13A Prince's Terrace, Central, Hong Kong
Exhibition Period: 1 September - 29 September, 2023
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The Oxford English Dictionary Online provides 12 different definitions for the word bound: verbs, adjectives, and nouns. There is tied up, a limitation, obliged under necessity, territorial boundaries, destined, leaping, bonds that tie, enslavement, and others. Being bound can entail restrictions, the removal of restrictions, anxiety, or comfort.
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In Bound, I investigate my feelings over the past several years living through the social and political changes that have occurred globally, and in Hong Kong specifically. I have many mixed emotions and the single ambiguous word ‘bound’ encapsulates so many of them.
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Red clay vessels, made on the potter’s wheel are transformed through squeezing and excising before being tied tight with twisted red fabric strips. A dark, but not black, glossy interior simultaneously absorbs and reflects the ambient lighting, while the exteriors are mostly unglazed, showing the scratch marks and scuffing of their formation like a hardened weathered skin. Their rims are partially folding inwards, perhaps shielding the contents, like a comforting embrace or maybe self-protection from external ills.
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