1 - 31 August 2024: This Island / An tOileán by Simon Kidd

klei welcomes Irish artist, Simon Kidd, who launches his tableware with us in August. Gas and soda pottery fired on Cape Clear off the coast of west Cork.

Private view Wednesday 31st July 6-8pm

What is the name of your exhibition and how would you sum it up in a couple lines?

An tOileán / This Island. Celadons, shinos, ashes, clays, soda. A collection of pots made on Oileán Chléire. One full of experiments - in glazes, firings, and forms, and a jumping off point for this new strand of my practice.

Since graduating from Central Saint Martins in 2018 you have mostly worked in sculpture. What drew you to that area of ceramics after you completed your time at university?

A lot of time in my degree was spent on research, where I focused my time on exploring ideas of materiality and place. This led me down a path of making work that has become more and more sculptural as time has gone on.

This is the launch of your tableware, how have you made your way to this point?

I’ve been working on a larger project within my art practice about the place that I’m living, Oileán Chléire, and I’ve found myself craving the rhythm I find in making tableware as an antithesis to that project. I’ve toyed with the idea of starting a tableware practice to run alongside my art practice for a while, so I’m glad to take the plunge.

Has making for this exhibition begun a big shift in your practice or do you find some similarities in the way you've been working? Do both practices come from similar inspiration?

There’s definitely been a big learning curve, some intense time spent in development in quite a different way than how it is in my practice usually. The speed of making and volume of pieces is really the biggest difference, but everything else feels familiar. The inspiration for the two practices vaguely similar, but with this tableware work it’s less about place specific projects, and it’s more just about making pots that I’d want to use, there’s veins of similarities as I’m using similar firing techniques and I’ll be incorporating more local material as I continue to develop that strand of the tableware, but I definitely see the two practices as being pretty separate.

What are the greatest joys or challenges you've faced putting together this body of work?

A couple of pieces that are in this collection are really special to me, a few moments where I felt pure relief and validation. Though there’s a very large barrel of reclaim and a slightly larger pile of smashed pots in my studio that I’ll need to deal with. But I’m really looking forward to seeing the work together in the shop, and think it’ll help guide me in the right direction for the pieces that I continue to make as part of my ongoing collection.

What is it about clay in general and firing in gas and soda that you're drawn to?

I just really love making things. The way that clay works, the steps you have to follow and then all the room that’s left to explore between them. Who doesn’t love burning and melting things, kilns really scratch that itch for me. I’ve been playing around with building different kilns with a pallet of bricks I got a year ago, I’ve really loved doing it, and the freedom of being able to mess around with materials without worrying about elements or nice kiln shelves, and this has naturally led me to introducing things like soda or wood ash into the kilns to create really juicy atmospheres to expose objects to.

Tell us how you settled yourself on Cape Clear? It's a far cry from life in London and Dublin. And does life on the island influence what you do?

It’s been a pretty big adjustment, and I definitely have had some really hard days here. But it’s also been rewarding in ways that I didn’t expect. Before I moved here I was starting to feel lost in Dublin, I was craving being outdoors and think I needed to feel connected to something. I’ve found a lot of that here, the connection to nature and the scale of it around you is really special. I do miss the city, I miss the ceramics and craft community that is so rich in London. I have a lot of freedom here with firings that I would struggle to have in the city, and I have a whole island of materials to explore.

Some of the pieces you've brought to clay are fired in a gas kiln you've set up near home, but some are fired with soda in a gas kiln you've built yourself with firebrick. How was the process of building your own kiln?

I’ve loved doing it. Bricks aren’t cheap but they are a lot cheaper than buying a kiln, it’s been really fun to try different designs and then if it doesn’t work just take it apart and try another one. There’s been a lot of frustrations along the way and I know nowhere near as much as I’d like to, but I’m learning a lot as I go, and that’s really been the most rewarding part of it.

One piece of advice you'd give to someone wanting to take it on themselves?

Follow a plan, but only vaguely. You’ll need a bigger chimney than you think you will. Have a bigger burns kit than you’ll think you need.

The pieces in this exhibition are the first move you've made to tableware in a long time; is there a shape or piece that you're particularly proud of?

There’s one dinner plate in particular that I really like. It’s one of the shino ones. It’s a really simple shape, but it worked exactly how I wanted it to. One of the small lidded jars that was fired in the soda kiln too, it caught some really lovely tones and flashing.

Who is a maker whose work you love and admire that we should know about but might not?

I’m really in love with Zoe Powell's work at the moment, it’s really different to mine, but I think she has a brilliant eye for the forms that she makes, generous yet gentle. I’d love to see them on this side of the Atlantic.

What is your favourite part of your making process and why? And does this change when making sculptures or throwing tableware?

The satisfaction of the end result, and the constant chasing of that incredibly rare feeling of pure satisfaction with how it worked. A lot of my sculptural work is made through casting, and there’s a special feeling of revealing the very first cast from a mould, a similar one to taking a step back from a freshly filled ware board and seeing it for the first time.

Where does the inspiration for your work usually come from? What sights, sounds, stories affect or influence you?

Theres usually a single idea that sparks off a project or body of work, and for me that’s usually something around an idea of place. I’m currently working on a research focused project that’s mapping the island through objects and hyper-local material research. But I’m also going to be doing things like casting the negative space around dry stacked rocks.

What is the most recent ceramic vessel or piece of pottery you bought for yourself, from where and by whom?

It was a couple of little plates from Mexico, from a market in Guadalajara. They are small little things, in a red clay with some painted decorations on them. I’m sure they’re probably just souvenirs for tourists but I think they are so cool.