Exhibition text by Mason Kimber
–
It helps to treat artworks as
lively personalities in their own right. One strange question I sometimes pose
to an object is: yeah you look pretty good, but are you in tune with the
cosmos? It's a way to temporarily step outside of your own biases and consider
the life trajectory of more-than-human things. While O'Loughlin’s vessels
operate within the traditional bounds of ceramics, they also gesture towards
something more vital, even wild.
In her 2017 text ‘Wild Things’,
Hilde Bouchez makes the distinction between tame and wild objects. Tame things
tend to be stripped of their own power and agency, like commercialized products
made by a well-known designer. Wild things, on the other hand, contain a type
of ordinary beauty where the material itself speaks, rather than the person who
made it. They possess an aura that taps into a deeper level of consciousness.
It’s the antithesis to the environment of the shopping center.
O’Loughlin is a shape-sorcerer
who crafts wonky families of ceramic vessels. In one blood-red piece, its
proudly glossy exterior gives the impression it came out of the kiln with an
air of defiance. Nearby, shyer ones with low-slung bodies covered in chalkboard-dry,
scumbly brushwork speak a softer language. Each work feels more like a distant
cousin rather than a close sibling. Some strike angular poses like a spinning
top as it starts to slow down and lose its center of gravity.
Staged upon a series of platform
steps as if patiently waiting to board a spacecraft, each piece in Strange
Altars appears like an offering from a distant planet, beckoning for its
own terms of adoration. With an emphasis on craftsmanship and tactility, they
speak to the quiet power of the material world in connecting us to outer
realms.