What Artists Like #8

With Guest Curator Evie Mae

Sculptor Evie Mae is this week’s Guest Curator, a 2024 graduate who is full of energy and vision. Thank you to Charlotte Brisland for nominating Evie – two very different artists, but some very fascinating reading!

“I really like the way Evie makes use of materials and how she plays with ideas of surface and beauty. (The Appraiser) really caught my eye as it is built up of alternative materials mimicking a chip board pillar. The sculpture is pretending to be the support to the main event, which is both comedic and playful.” – Charlotte Brisland on Evie Mae, What Artists Like #7

NW – Charlotte – who nominated you – made an interesting observation about your work transforming structures that would traditionally used to support art into the art itself. Is this intentional? Or perhaps something you hadn’t considered?

EM – It amuses me that Charlotte thought ‘The Appraiser’ was made of chipboard (probably a reminder that I should rephotograph my works!) because I was surprised at how disappointed I was. The piece is made in scagliola, an Italian marbling technique using plaster to imitate marble. Polishing the plaster by hand takes hours and a great deal of labour. It took 9 months. I could have had a baby in that time. If I could have provoked the questioning of value through banging together some chip board sheets it would have saved me a heck ton of blisters from polishing and a baby worth of time.

The irony is, this demonstrated the point of my artwork perfectly.

My intention in creating a plinth was to play with idea of value. Just as Charlotte comments, turning the plinth into the artwork itself it questions what we classify as ‘art object’ – a hierarchy of value. Choosing an imitation marble effect was intended to add to this questioning. Many who see scagliola in European chapels are unaware it’s truth. Is knowing it’s secret what gives it value? It seeks to question the value of materiality as plaster is a much cheaper, accessible and mundane material than marble. Yet the hours of labour attaches a different type of value to the object. Charlotte understood my point, but again it made me question, if I could have illustrated the same thing in a day with some chipboard, was the labour part of the object’s value at all?

Does any of this change the value or at the end of the day is it just an object that looks nice?

These are the type of questions I enjoy exploring.

Whilst I enjoy that scagliola creates beautiful aesthetics in-line with the fashions of the interior ‘design object’ world, maybe ‘The Appraiser’ is one of two and I should order in some chip board! Thank you Charlotte.

NW – There’s a real philosophical element running through your work. It’s in the way you talk about it, but there is also a Zen-like feel to some of your sculptures. What is the link between philosophy and your work?

EM – The Taoist ideology linked to Raku inspired a lot of my practice. I had just left religion after 21 years when beginning this body of work. When reading about Raku as a ceramic practice, the ideology of pursuing the natural, unstructured and mundane way of viewing beauty was a such relief to me. It was uncomplicated and felt like a break after much personal searching and friction against other ‘religions’ people I was surrounded by.

I think philosophy can be seen in anyones artwork if you are a person who critically thinks about the world. What you see depends what you are looking for; understanding, peace, beauty. You look for the answers to the questions you hold. That is the philosophy of seeing, itself.

I wanted to culture a space of reflection, something Zen-gardens are renown for. It seems strange to say I did intend to culture a ‘Zen-like feel’ into my work as this is something that seems ingenuine if artificially created. Raku is a classic example of the Zen and Taoist principles, ‘wabi’, ‘sabi’, ‘yugen’ and ‘aware’ which balances the acceptance of the natural and refining of the potter. True Raku takes years of practice and I have a great respect for the craft.

As the artist, being able to put a state of being, thinking or rethinking into a material process was the challenge. I think if it holds any weight, it is due to it’s authenticity. People relate to people. I create from my own emotion and experiences, but you will view them with your own.

NW – You regularly use the Raku process of firing ceramics, which is a type of low-fire pottery that often uses out-of-kiln techniques. You also use some interesting materials, such as dandelion hay, redwood sawdust and newspaper. Do you take an experimental approach to you work, or are these learned techniques?

EM – My school art teacher told me once ‘You’ve got to learn the rules to break them.’

I think thats how I approach art. Finding the thing that you shouldn’t be able to do or what is seen to be as a ‘flaw’ in the outcome. Raku was the first process I found that from the get go, incorporates imperfections.

Honestly, the materials for my Saga fire were a last minute run around Edinburgh to find materials that matched my research on the best combustibles for raku. Sawdust and thin paper burn well and darken the cracks in the glaze with soot. On such late notice, this ended up being the last bag of dandelion hay at the nearest vet, any newspaper from Sainsbury’s (I picked one I thought would be controversial to burn,) and sweeping the floor of the woodworking. Redwood, a premium tree, just happened to be the wood there at the time.

This all worked in my favour, each thing I found having an additional layer of interest and therefore enhancing the question of value in materiality that underlines my work.

NW – Five Diaries is a time-based piece made from 2020 to 2022, consisting of 5 vessels. I wondered if there is a autobiographical element? Especially considering the universal symbolism of a container for water.

EM – ‘Five Diaries, 2020-2022’ is a personal way of processing of two years of my life entailing trauma, anorexia, bulimia, divorce, depression, first love, anxiety, breakup, death, grief.

Are these vessels more valuable because of the weight of a persons grief embodied into an object or in reality, or are these just clay pots covered in words unrelating to another’s life?

For me, it is a physical choice to create beauty out of something seemingly unbeautiful.

NW – Congratulations on graduating in 2024. This is an exciting time in your career. I’m guessing that Edinburgh College of Art has some great facilities and had been a valuable resource for you over the past four years. Without access to the sculpture department, do you see your work changing at all? How will you adapt your practice away from the art school environment?

EM – Thank you!

Ironically, we didn’t have a Raku kiln so it took a lot of persuading the university estates to let us open the electric kiln mid-fire… or just ignoring them. I tended to find that most of my artwork in the university seemed to cause one problem or another.

The raku was done in a metal B&Q bin (way overpriced I might add). I was only allowed to do two vessels this way, hence why ‘Five Diaries, 2020-2022’ was done as a saga fire. Restrictions give an interesting force to creativity. I wrapped the vessels in tin foil containing my shredded diaries which ended up creating a really interesting pattern on the surfaces.

What the university had was; plaster for my casting, wood for my moulds, too much of my money and Andrew Dunlop. A huge thank you to Andrew the casting technician at ECA who put up with my ever changing ideas, found new ways to make them happen, supported my practice, and lent me his own plaster pigments. Absolute legend.

I am currently working on turning the remains of my burnt diaries into an insoluble pigment. This is to be used in another scagliola piece. Other than that, sell as much art as possible so I can get a cat.

Evie has selected 12 works from the New Blood Art collection, which she has divided into three curated collections: Work For Walls, Fresh Artists and Work I Can’t Stop Looking At. We have included the first two collections below, but you can see all three over at our blog. Link below.

Thanks for reading 🙂

Nicola Wiltshire

(Editor and New Blood Art artist)

Work For Walls

“My personal top piece from the website. I want to put it in a room with a sexy sleek marble table or a chunky wooden bench. Requires lots of breathing space as these pieces do a lot of talking, even with such few words.” – EM

“An organic and beautiful energy. Super easy work to style at home. On a fireplace, on a bookshelf… there is always room for simple complimentary large sculptures such as Kim’s. ” – EM

“The perfect colour palette to match your throws and cushions to.” – EM

Fresh Artists

Work I Can’t Stop Looking At