Masters by Research

Karen Morgan

The Mother of Invention: How obstacles can become opportunities to redefine a ceramics practice

Having developed the condition of Rheumatoid arthritis, which had compromised the use of my hands as a wheel-based practitioner, this MA research gifted me with the opportunity to reconsider the centrality of my hands in my creative process. I explored the concept of embracing obstacles as opportunities. Chaos and lack of control are often seen and felt as destructive negative forces to resist and fear, but, if embraced, we allow ourselves to become flexible, fluid, open to respond, grow, and adapt, like flowing water that always finds it path.

This body of work emerged from unrehearsed, intuitive conversations between the physicality of materials and the sensibility of my hands, capturing the energy, movement, fluidity, and unconscious flow of thoughts that arise in the moments of creation, unencumbered by result. Thinking through making, moving through matter to create material thoughts.

I build paintings and compositions through clay, drawing and printing processes. My clay work resembles a form of ceramic action or matter painting. Mark making with clay, initially, on a flat surface, I then restructure and assemble into three-dimensional forms. Drawing, painting, and ceramic processes have a symbiotic relationship and I see the works as a perpetual experimental process, not concluded outcomes were separation, finality or confinement exist.

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