Artist statement
From the search for peace comes an urge to create. Not based on thought, but based on feeling. Feeling, work and more work. I find inspiration in the architecture of Nature. I start from the images stored in my head and the experience of the previous work. The stomach dictates the form, the head takes the decisions. Each result shows me myself and better knowledge allows for yet a deeper digging. Thus, each work becomes an investigation. I usually work in series, which sets limits but also offers growth.
Xylo is a Greek word meaning 'wood'. The pots of the xylo-series are built up through the joining together of unrolled strips of clay. These strips are impressed with different pieces of bark. For the boominwaarts-series these strips are formed against the inside of a hollow trunk. Gekliefd en gekloven (G˛) is a series of stoneware pots that have been inspired both by the action of the cleaving and the chapped wood (the faddy lines, knots and beautiful details). These pots are built up through the joining together of unrolled strips of clay that are pressed on different pieces of splitted wood.
The walls are thin for the scale of the work, giving a tension between mass and delicacy. The surface is covered with a number of different self-composed ash glazes, thus creating a skin that resembles wood, mosses and corals. As a mathematician, I am fascinated by the solutions Nature has found for complex problems. Nature often has to deal with applied problems in maxima and minima: how to build a strong piece with as less material as possible.
This is why my work is mostly formed at the inside: the outside follows as a logical result. In the golem-series the strength comes from inner ribs. In the porcelain-series the weight flows away with the appropriate curve (chain-line). These pieces are fired upside down, thus allowing the processes of gravity and melting to act out their parts in order to extract the pot in the kiln.
Furthermore, I am committed to working in an ecological way: no use of toxic materials, single-wood-firing if possible, the use of typical materials found in my own environment.
Guy Van Leemput (° 1967, Herentals) studied mathematics at the university of Leuven. From 2001 to 2009 he attended the ceramics class at the Academy of Fine Arts in Herentals. He attended masterclasses with Mieke Everaet, Gustavo Perez and Shozo Michikawa. At a number of previous occasions his work has been selected for competitions and group-exhibitions. Both in own land and foreign countries. Recently his work was selected for the International Ceramics Competition l’Alcora ‘09. His first major solo exhibition took place in 2008. In October 2009 Van Leemput designed a monumental firing sculpture for the 800th anniversary of the city of Herentals.