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Tommy Zen
Oxblood Neo Classique Vase

About the Item

Mixed media ceramic sculpture. Unique hand-made vessel. 500 years separate Tommy Zen from his Neolithic pottery ancestors. It is, however, the same kind of coiling that is repeated and the same pigments that are used: sienna and umber - the dark reds of Hacilar vases, the jet black of Cilician ceramists. The shapes of Tommy Zen’s work also draw from the origins of humanity, so much so that they look like vestiges brought to surface and light by a passionate archaeologist. Examples of his work include glazed amphorae in which the Phoenician sailors kept oil, red pottery from the people of El Ran, massive storage jars of the Cretan civilization, Nineveh vases with long tapered legs, cinerary urns as found in Tibeto-Burman tombs, and wells with ferrules that played a big role in the development of Indus cities. His inspiration may be diverse, but it generates work that bears a strange and fascinating power of evocation every time. Hieratic and mysterious, Tommy Zen's large vases disturb our subconscious. They remind us of those ancient times when the command of magical forces of nature and the universe pervaded every artistic event. They are objects that transcend their domestic calling to reach cosmogony: source of life as containers for water and provisions; eternal rest in the secrets of burial urns. These are the libation vases that appease malicious spirits - the ritual vases of shamans and soothsayers offering food to the souls of the dead. Some redden like the hearts of half-asleep volcanoes, others have their flanks glow like barbaric armor where improbable milky ways are conjured. Still others have the warm patina of antique furniture imagined in darkened sandalwood-scented rooms; the brilliance of acute blues aptly called "Prussian", and the yellows that pulsate above the Neapolitan streets on bright sunny days. His objects intend to bring about escape from every day life. Cabinetmakers – from father to son, generation after generation – compose Tommy Zen's Venetian family. With woodworker’s blood, he cannot lie: to enamel and traditional glaze, the ceramist prefers the plasters and gilding of luxury furniture. He borrows the oxidants on bronze or silver sheets from Italian Renaissance and, from Ancestral China, the lacquered varnishes that create deep shades in which the eye gets lost. With the fusion of many techniques developed over more than twenty years, pieces like no other are born, whose unfathomable surfaces owe nothing to conventional glazes. Each piece is entirely hand-sanded and baked at high heat (2200 °F), which increases its resistance to shocks. Sizes range from 36 to 144 inches in height and from 29 to 60 inches in diameter. As for shape, anything is possible: from palm tree planter to roman thermal baths; same goes for color – pigments or oxidants – and surface texture.

Creator:
Tommy Zen (Canadian)
Dimensions:
Height: 84 in (213.36 cm)Width: 20 in (50.8 cm)
Medium:
Ceramic,Mixed Media
Movement & Style:
Contemporary
Period:
2010-
Condition:
Gallery Location:
Miami, FL
Reference Number:
1stDibs: LU161429216202

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