Playing with Shadows

摘要

Cast your mind back to the 1990s when pale porcelain was suddenly in vogue: it was scooped up by collectors and promoted in lifestyle magazines; there were serious exhibitions too, with Edmund de Waal bringing fresh impetus to thinking and writing about pots and porcelain. In recognition of this renewed interest in 'white gold1, the Victoria and Albert Museum staged The New White in its 20th Century Gallery's Design Now room in 1999, and in the accompanying brochure the curator Alun Graves wrote that the work 'reflects a new direction for ceramics in the 1990s. It represents a stylistic shift away from the painted pottery of the previous decade...' Daniel Smith, one of seven potters in that memorable show, presented a breakfast plate setting, eight coffee cups and saucers, two of his trademark nests of bowls, two oil/vinegar bottles, a tall jug and a vase. Five years out of college, he had already been selected for two British Council touring exhibitions: Time for Tea (1996) and Dish of the Day (1997), as well as Ceramic Contemporaries 2 at the V&A (1996), in which he exhibited a pale porcelain coffee cup, milk jug and breakfast cup. The austerity of his pots must have appealed to Joanna Constantinidis who was on the judging panel, and to whose work Smith attributes his general swing towards porcelain whilst at college. During this time he became aware of what Constantinidis and de Waal were doing. 'I was naturally drawn towards this kind of work,' he says frankly.