Jane du Rand Ceramic Mosaic Artist

EXHIBITION: LOATHING AND LOVING AND GIVING

Jane's exhibition, Loathing and Loving and Giving, was at artSPACE durban from 27 October until 15 November 2008.

Artist's Statement:

In Loathing and Loving and Giving I use ceramics and mosaics made out of numerous bits and pieces to explore the daily emotions that I experience as a working mother. As I care for my family and claim time for my work and my creative self, I have to find a precarious balance. How, at the same time, can I be completely selfish, and yet also selfless? The feelings that are expressed through the shape and colour of tiny ceramic fragments and the layering of objects are therefore contradictory.

The numerous circular forms suggest encircling, cupping and protecting that which is valuable and precious. These are the resolved feelings of being a mother - the contentment of holding, caring, nurturing and loving. But society presents us with ideals of motherhood that leaves little space for the more difficult feelings of loathing, fearing, resenting, fighting - the exhaustion of giving, giving, giving.

We are called upon to love and care for our children. We may not hate or loathe them. As a mother, I have to deal with really difficult feelings of frustration. Sometimes I am literally tearing out my hair as I struggle with the ideal of the perfect mother.

The colours are also expressive of the divergent feelings that come with being a mother. Sometimes, there are overlaps as you can be loving and giving, and loathing and giving at the same time. I have layered some of the pieces, so that you need to look through a ceramic layer to see what is contained inside or underneath. I also used tools usually associated with domesticity and children’s celebrations, such as cookie cutters for the decorative cut-out patterns of the terracotta tiles. Here, I am trying to express the difficulty of even allowing those forbidden emotions of dislike to the surface. Of trying to look at what you are too afraid to look at or to really see.

The medium of mosaics and my specific approach also allows me to snatch moments for my personal art, in-between the bread-and-butter of commissions and time spent with my children. Small individual ceramic pieces could be made with small bits of time. It was only at the end of this process that I claimed the time to put everything together in its final form.

EXHIBITION : FORREST OF COLUMNS

Media Release

The NSA Gallery proudly presents

An exhibition of mosaic columns by Jane du Rand

18 March 2003 Until 6 April 2003

With a special performance by Siwela Sonke Dance Theatre

Jane du Rand is a mosaic artist living and working in Durban. A qualified architect, du Rand has been working with mosaics on numerous public and private commissions mainly through architects who use her work as part of the design and building process.

Interested in decoration as an integral part of design, du Rand has contributed to major recent public buildings and sites, including Melrose Arch in Johannesburg and the recent pilot project for the rejuvenation of West Street in the CBD of Durban.

For the exhibition du Rand will be presenting twelve exquisitely crafted columns. Rekindling research interest in columns since her architectural studies, the exhibition traces a kind of heritage or lineage to the Tuscan Doric Column, which became a norm for veranda houses in Durban in the early 1900’s. Inspiration was also drawn from the Dogon in Mali, and its carved images, as well as the Egyptian capitals developed from the patterns and shapes of local plant forms.

Describing the exhibition as a ‘forest’ of columns, du Rand has attributed each individual piece with its own history or symbolism – each with a name and a sense of ‘place’. Each themed column has been luxuriously covered in rare sourced tiles and thousands of tiny colourful ceramic objects, painstakingly hand made and glazed.

Storm Janse van Rensburg (Curator)

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EXHIBITION : HANDMADE

NSA Gallery 27 September – 16 October 2005

Jane du Rand

For this exhibition I produced a body of work influenced and informed by motherhood. Working with oversized vessels, symbolic of the female form as carrier, I have embellished each work with precious and minute detail. Small anatomic details and shapes are reproduced and repeated so that the patterns that emerge become narrative.

The work consists of:

Protrusions 1 – 1600mm high x 800mm diameter

Protrusions 2 – 1600mm high x 800mm diameter

Openings – 1600mm high x 800mm diameter

Container 1 – 1250mm high x 800mm diameter

Container 2 – 1250mm high x 800mm diameter

Openings 1600mm high x 800mm diameter

This vessel is decorated with handmade ceramic pieces in stylized vagina shapes. There is an area of intense detail around the widest diameter of the pot where vagina shaped containers hold precious pieces of ceramics, broken china and bits of gold leaf behind glass.

Container 1 1250mm high x 800mm diameter

The pot is seen as a container of something precious which is hidden inside itself, in the same way that a pregnant woman is carrying something precious hidden inside.

The inside of the pot is highly decorated with small round containers which hold collected objects, hand made ceramic bits and pieces, bits of gold, silver, glass…

The inside of the pot is lit up with tiny concealed light bulbs.

The outside of the pot is kept deliberately plain.

Container 2 1250mm high x 800mm diameter

The pot is seen as a container of something precious which is hidden inside itself, in the same way that a pregnant woman is carrying something precious hidden inside.

The inside of the pot is highly decorated with small round containers which hold collected objects, hand made ceramic bits and pieces, bits of gold, silver, glass…

The inside of the pot is lit up with tiny concealed light bulbs.

The outside of the pot is kept deliberately plain.

Protrusions 1 1600mm high x 800mm diameter

Handmade terracotta pieces and glazed ceramic pieces as well as handmade textured ceramic tile are used to decorate this pot. The protrusions, like tiny stomachs, bulge out of the pot growing larger as they ascend.

Protrusions 2 1600mm high x 800mm diameter

This pot is made up of hundreds of handmade terra cotta breasts. The breasts are bursting and engorged around the widest diameter of the pot and sag as they move down toward the floor. The breasts are highly decorative and patterned, so that they evolve into other things – little cakes or cactus spikes, depending on the viewer.

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Jane du Rand Ceramic Mosaic Artist

An exhibition of mosaic columns by Jane du Rand

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