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Lot Essay
Within Elif Uras’ oeuvre, ceramic works represent the perfect vehicle for addressing the conflict between modernity and tradition. The artist works on location in İznik, Turkey—where the most renowned tiles and ceramics of the Ottoman Empire were produced centuries ago—in order to create a visual connection between historic İznik pottery and the female form.
Based on historic sources merging feminine forms and vibrant colour, the present work is poised perfectly between figuration and abstraction. Pregnant Coil captures Uras’ masterful ability to combine painting and ceramic techniques without losing either medium’s formal aesthetic or contextual coherence. This curvaceous, spotted ceramic work is the latest example of Uras’ visual research responding to the status of women in the context of the East-West conflict paradigm, and the shifting class and gender structures of a globalised world where culture is increasingly infused with consumerism. Detailed with a magical and patterned scene of two women on the underside, the elegant simplicity of this ceramic form is transformed by its captivating paintwork.
Elif Uras was born in 1972 in Turkey and relocated to the United States to attend Brown University and Columbia Law School. She later received her MFA from Columbia School of the Arts. Her works have been exhibited at the Victoria & Albert Museum, London; MoMA PS1, New York; Salon 94, New York; the 9th Shanghai Biennale; Proje 4L/Elgiz Museum of Contemporary Art, Istanbul and Pera Museum, Istanbul. Uras' works are held in the collections of the Victoria & Albert Museum, London and the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York.
Based on historic sources merging feminine forms and vibrant colour, the present work is poised perfectly between figuration and abstraction. Pregnant Coil captures Uras’ masterful ability to combine painting and ceramic techniques without losing either medium’s formal aesthetic or contextual coherence. This curvaceous, spotted ceramic work is the latest example of Uras’ visual research responding to the status of women in the context of the East-West conflict paradigm, and the shifting class and gender structures of a globalised world where culture is increasingly infused with consumerism. Detailed with a magical and patterned scene of two women on the underside, the elegant simplicity of this ceramic form is transformed by its captivating paintwork.
Elif Uras was born in 1972 in Turkey and relocated to the United States to attend Brown University and Columbia Law School. She later received her MFA from Columbia School of the Arts. Her works have been exhibited at the Victoria & Albert Museum, London; MoMA PS1, New York; Salon 94, New York; the 9th Shanghai Biennale; Proje 4L/Elgiz Museum of Contemporary Art, Istanbul and Pera Museum, Istanbul. Uras' works are held in the collections of the Victoria & Albert Museum, London and the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York.