Perisope Gallery 2006

Jacaranda Kori concentrates her compositional and colorful events within the bounds of the vase, complete with the traditional components of base, body and neck. The vase is the primary vessel known to us from time immemorial, since the time when the first human being took a lump of clay and formed it into a container.

There is no over-complicated showing-off here, nor any desire for revolution in her work. Instead, Kori works with the immediacy, naivety and energy of joie de vivre. Handwork changes the symmetry of the wheel-shaped vessel until an interesting but not unfamiliar shape is obtained, to create a vessel reminiscent of a shape from the past but with a unique personal touch. Each piece is splendidly glazed, some with pure color, with etched forms freely quoted from many sources playing over all of the exterior and interior facets in a syntax taken from Nature, with organic forms and textures from cactus to corals, or patterns inspired by vases from ancient Greece through folk art from Mexico (the artist’s birthplace).

Taken all together, Kori’s pieces create an emotional, poetic and magical paradise full of color, drawing the viewer into adventures while providing a place of rest from mundane worries (as Matisse compared his paintings to a comfortable chair on which one could rest after a hard day’s work).

The simplicity of the forms, the strong colors and decorative twists and turns on the body of the ceramic vessels affect us with their immediacy and spontaneity.

Kori creates out of lively energy she draws from the earth, creating vessels with patinas that capture enchanted dreams, bits of childhood memories, natural forms and flashes of vases of history and archaeology.

Sari Paran 
Curator

April 2006