Manon van Kouswijk: Waterway Crackle

It is impossible to anticipate what’s on the menu with Manon van Kouswijk. Her first solo exhibition in 1999, Wash (& stay for a while), at the invitation of Gallery Funaki had visitors washing hands with soap-covered pearls. Her second exhibition in 2000, Gallery Funaki 2nd Floor, demanded a command of vertigo to clamber up ladders to access the works on display. This jeweller knows how to build anticipation and I am curious. From Crossley Street I peer through the window to her most recent show, Re:turn, and see a mirror reflection of myself all wide-eyed and serious: how expectant I look!

Upon entering, there is a pervasive smell of untreated timber and the room is filled with ceramics and textiles. Objects are stacked, draped and slotted high and low into shelving cubicles made from what seems to be recycled lath-and-plaster timber strips. These boxes seem makeshift and precarious, not unlike bamboo scaffolds used on Asian building sites. The rough-hewn timber, as an installation device, insinuates a sense of work in progress or a visit to the studio. The mass of objects recalls a retail experience rather than the often rarefied experience of gallery. This intervention of shelving and crowding of pieces does restrict somewhat the ability to get close to many of the works.

Standing back to allow breathing space, it is clear that Re:turn is a colossal, multifaceted and accomplished exhibition. Thirty-seven works of jewellery including earrings, necklaces and brooches, metal and ceramic eating utensils, crockery, napkins and objects such as stationary, postcards and mirrors fill the gallery and firmly announce van Kouswijk’s ability to dance dexterously across media disciplines to resolve her conceptual concerns.

Van Kouswijk has clearly continued to load everyday objects with the trace of memory, marks of time and impression of wear. In the show Wash (& stay for a while), a tablecloth and napkin setting was lovingly embroidered with remnant food and wine stains, a memento of a shared meal. In the current exhibition, the domestic joy of dining is taken on a reverent historical journey. Waterway Crackle is a place setting with napkin and plate. The napkin is printed with the spidery traces of two rivers systems: one from China in red and one from The Netherlands in blue. This overlay speaks of the path from China of the porcelain trade and the blue decoration synonymous with Dutch ceramics. The plate carries the blue rivers of The Netherlands alone. Remove this plate from the setting and an unprinted circular void is revealed in the napkin. This act of object possession and decorative appropriation insinuates a disregard of Asian origins by European ceramic history, a bit like a colonising of technique, even though the Dutch did not colonise China (the origins of this skill and decoration) but rather South East Asia.

Waterway Crackle is additionally a parody about the very pragmatics of ceramic process, a new discipline that van Kouswijk undertook while on residency at the European Ceramic Work Centre in The Netherlands. The hand-painted blue ‘crackle’ lines recreate the appearance of crazing, a fault where a clay body and glaze form an imperfect fit and are unable to sustain the rigor of firing and use. Bacteria and stains accumulate in the cracks, the bane of any ceramicist making functional crockery. Van Kouswijk combines decoration, function and historical comment in a single work.

Three months at the ECWC culminated in a proficiency in slip casting and decals. Despite this skill, the works in this exhibition are not intended for functional use but a conceptual outcome. Many of the works in Re:turn express van Kouswijk’s subtle sense of humour. In the Re:place series, simple slip-cast beakers with saucer are bereft of handles and teaspoon. These have been added by way of a drawn line in small pierced dots. Succumbing to functional need, van Kouswijk renders the cup unusable and sets up the visual pun. Humour aside, this work continues the question of how memory leaves visual traces on the objects of everyday use. This quiet, whimsical humour extends itself to the full blown surrealist absurdity found in the Egg Spoons series. Here the egg resting in the teaspoons melt into each other in pure Dali-esque fantasy.

Whilst I was definitely drawn to the ceramic work in this exhibition, I was delighted by the Re:place necklace series. Stringing semi-precious beads of pearl, peridot, rose quartz, lapis lazuli, glass and onyx to create 1950s style triplet necklaces. These were carefully hand stitched onto petite collars of cheap and cheerful polka dot cotton fabric. This demure and succinct ensemble is an observation of the obvious; the meeting place between garment and jewellery that in turn ‘replaces’ the need for either.

These necklaces sit somewhat aside from what I understand to be Kouswijk’s working concerns and the many works she has presented to the public to date. They do not reveal the wear and tear of use, they do not speak of the importance of dining, they tell no stories about journeys and returns. However this baffled state does in no way hinder my desire for the work.

This exhibition also provided an opportunity to observe examples of high quality, challenging souvenirs available in The Netherlands. Waterway Crackle is commercially available on website www.dutch-souvenirs.org. This site is full of non-corny, patriotic gadgets that are cool and clever. Re:turn also includes ephemeral necklaces, Dutch Pearls constructed from string and paper dots the colours of the national flag. Delft blue decoration appear as decals along the handle of an Egg spoon. 4 Courses, The Netherlands are napkins commissioned by the Dutch Textile Museum. When the napkins are folded and arranged according to the compass-points, the commercially woven damask pattern reveals a map of The Netherlands. These objects are handcrafted souvenirs, a long way from the trade in shoddily made kitsch.

Room Service is a set of porcelain measuring spoons containing the traces of a glossy pink or blue viscous liquid, recalling polio sabin and other childhood medication. Differing levels and pouring drips have pooled within the bowl of each spoon. Even the spoon’s handle becomes the holder of liquid. Contradictory numerical systems record and/or mismeasure liquid, rendering each instrument defunct via their relationship to each other and to the belief in consistent, accurate measurement. This seemingly ordinary little object might become the cause of over prescription or overdose.

Halfway through the exhibition another mirror appears. Butterfly shaped, it reflects my face from another angle. This is awkward and annoying, the harder I try to catch my gaze the more allusive it becomes. Surrendering to this skewed observation of the familiar, I continue to ‘read’ the works in this exhibition. The most conspicuous of domestic objects are loaded with additional value, function and associations. The outcomes are so undeniably evident that they have an ‘a-ha’ quality to them and yet it is van Kouswijk’s unique viewpoint that is responsible for their creation.

Another exhibition, These are things that hold me here by Katherine Bowman, simultaneously exhibited nearby at Craft Victoria, presents us with familiar materials and objects laden with memory: pyjama flannel, antique lace, grey blanket, gabled houses and brooches. Both this and Re:turn have been programmed to coincide with the Jewellery and Metalsmiths Group of Australia biennial conference, and provide points of contrast in the exploration of the everyday. Bowman’s sensitive and gentle works, whilst seemingly straightforward, allow us the smallest peek into her private world, which is the beauty and eloquence of this show too. Van Kouswijk’s everyday objects are familiar yet fresh and clever. She delights in the obvious and presents the conspicuous with a twist.