ABOUT THE WORK

Less is more: the seemingly limited repertoire of gyratory bodies forms the basis for the versatile and unassuming, yet noble body of work by Guido Sengle. Encountering his work is an invitation to linger and discover. The display of perfection transfixes the observer, drawing him closer to the object. The eye travels along the silhouette, becomes immersed in the depth of the glaze and finally gets lost in the labyrinth of craquelé. What appeared before to be perfect and complete, but in a way static, reveals itself as vibrant and in a constant state of becoming. This is an almost meditative process which connects the observer anew with the struggle of the creator – the struggle with translating the idea, finding an expression or with clarifying the form.

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Many of the vessels have been altered over the years and decades – by colouring the craquelé in a carbon-rich smoke firing, by reheating the vessels and applying ice-cubes to the hot glaze in order to induce specific patterns of cracks, by using acid to enrich the shiny glaze with a satiny sheen or in extreme cases by removing the glaze with hammer and chisel so as to begin afresh with the glazing. At the end of this creative process only few vessels remain. Hence every individual work is a manifestation of the effort “to become (something)”. 

Each is a testimonial to the skills which exact time and energy as their toll, a toll paid willingly by a creator who has got to know the meaningfulness of his work. The work of Guido Sengle conveys to the eye the patience and longanimity practiced in the creative, its artisan mastery moving those who behold it.