A Free Hand

摘要

The Dutch potter Irena Sibrijns has secured an repressive reputation in both England and France for her colourful and painterly tablewares. She began her career as a potter in Tisbury, Wiltshire, creating an immediate impact with large freely-painted plates in an updated 17th century Staffordshire style. Other domestic wares combined eccentric but still fully-functional forms with vigorous surface decoration. 'I feel', Sibrijns says, 'that my work is firmly rooted in the tradition of European ceramics, and I especially admire, and am inspired by, Dutch and English tin glazed earthenware'. The intense mark of the wide Chinesc brush on the clay has always been a feature of her work. These are very much painted pots, with the enthusiasm for the moment of painting explicit in the free overlay and bold application of colour. Her pots have the spontaneity of watercolour, its sense of risk being disciplined by the interior and exterior shape of each piece.Sibrijns has developed her range of wares and maintained this dynamic approach to surface decoration throughout her career, whether in the Wiltshire studio (from 1990), in her studio in France (from 1995) or over the past year in a new studio adjoining her house (a converted 18th century barn in Suffolk). Sibrijns quickly established a market for her work in Wiltshire, selling especially well through artist-led sales weekends in private houses in the county and in Dorset. In France this infrastructure was not available. Work was sold through a small number of galleries, often focussed on French ceramists with their emphasis on Oriental ceramics and sculptural form, alien territory for Sibrijns, though she did sell in French markets. These were mostly visited by casual, day-trip tourists with little or no interest in ceramics. The few who did intend to buy were looking for mainly traditional shapes and decoration.