Agape Charmani for Art-Sheep
Livia Marin is a Chilean artist, based in London, known for ceramic and sculpting works. Often creating large-scale installations, Marin is interested in mass-produced objects and the ways they can be used into her art.
In her series, Nomad Patterns, the artist works with clay to create a series of fine China, that in this case is actually anything but fine. The artist manipulates the form and appearance of ceramics, altering their nature and their purpose. This series of artworks cannot work as a decorative curio in a person’s house, as its “melting” feature doesn’t provide the viewer with a serene feeling.
Or does it? Truth is that Marin’s flowing China is so exceptionally made that it looks like its vases are actually broken and their components are spilling on the table. This illusion lures the viewer into getting lost inside its beautiful calligraphic shapes and floral patterns, that were created as a pastiche of the Chinese decorative style, by an English man in the 1790s.
The ideas of re-imagining and remaking are profound throughout Marin’s work, as the artist constantly explores the ways the world and its inhabitants relate to the things around them, and tries to find new means and narrations of the relations created. The characteristic of the unfamiliar in the familiar is something the artist is interest in, as the notion of familiarity seems to have been taken advantaged of by the humanity.
Nomad Patterns is a series with a main juxtaposition describing its very nature. The contradiction of how the creation of something new and unique can look as ruins, but still look beautiful and delicate.
