Work

Take a look at the various work of Monique Visser, click on the triangle below. Also have a look at the Dutch page for more pictures.

Artist statement.

Out of passion for food and cooking, I started a serial investigation for ceramic cooking pots. It should be visible outside what happened inside.

I want to petrify the alchemy of the cooking process.

A piece is only in harmony if all the ingredients ( rhythm, size, structure, texture and color) are fitting together like sweet, salt, sour and bitter are fitting together in a dish. Being an artist or being a cook is to me equal in intensity. To me, the ceramics is inspiring the cooking and the other way around.

My goal is to capture the fugitive into the clay.

The beans and the seeds in the recipes in my cookbook “Sfeerproeverij” are used in the fragments of the pots, and germinate in the raw clay. After the germs are dry, the pot has been fired on 1040 C; what's left is the pugs of the growing process. The process is more important than the results.

To support the raw clay, I use plaster moulds. In spite of the fact using moulds, there is always a new unique form arising. I build with small basic parts, repeating them over and over. The repetition makes the texture, structure and construction, you can taste with your eye's.

In my work color is coming from inside, or developed during the firing process, it's not something added later. Material is defining the color, sometimes because off addition from pigments and oxides. I only use glazes for catching the light.