Heidi Bjørgan
Pitcher
2023
Slipcast stoneware and reglaze 4 times
28 × 19 × 17 cm
Slipcast stoneware and reglaze 4 times
28 × 19 × 17 cm
About the artist
Heidi Bjørgan (b. 1970 in Trondheim, Norway) is graduate with an MA in Ceramic Art as well as Creative Curating from Bergen Academy of Art and Design, Norway, and also Konstfack, Sweden.
Statement: “I am making pots for art's sake, God's sake, the future generations, and for my own satisfaction,” claimed the eccentric American potter George Ohr (1857–1918) more than a century ago. Ohr’s expressive ceramics have been a great source of inspiration to me in later years. Through my objects I like to challenge conventional ideas about perfection by “deleting” all traces of acquired professional skills. In principle my main method consists of doing all the things that in theory should be impossible such as blend glazes, clay types and other substances that cannot be mixed. In this way I expose the works to treatments where the risk of making ‘mistakes’ is very high. The objects may often look as if though they have melted and imploded in the kiln. Making is to me a balancing act between the constructive and the destructive, the beautiful and the ugly. Found objects have always played a part in my work. A cast from a glas lamp shade have been used as a mould for making many of my vessels. This brings in cultural references that goes beyond my own individuality and connects the objects to other histories.
Her work is included in National and international collections like The National Museum in Oslo, Nordenfjeldske Kunstindustrimuseum in Trondheim, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, KODE in Bergen, and V&A in London, and several private collections around the world.
Statement: “I am making pots for art's sake, God's sake, the future generations, and for my own satisfaction,” claimed the eccentric American potter George Ohr (1857–1918) more than a century ago. Ohr’s expressive ceramics have been a great source of inspiration to me in later years. Through my objects I like to challenge conventional ideas about perfection by “deleting” all traces of acquired professional skills. In principle my main method consists of doing all the things that in theory should be impossible such as blend glazes, clay types and other substances that cannot be mixed. In this way I expose the works to treatments where the risk of making ‘mistakes’ is very high. The objects may often look as if though they have melted and imploded in the kiln. Making is to me a balancing act between the constructive and the destructive, the beautiful and the ugly. Found objects have always played a part in my work. A cast from a glas lamp shade have been used as a mould for making many of my vessels. This brings in cultural references that goes beyond my own individuality and connects the objects to other histories.
Her work is included in National and international collections like The National Museum in Oslo, Nordenfjeldske Kunstindustrimuseum in Trondheim, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, KODE in Bergen, and V&A in London, and several private collections around the world.