Jane Reumert

'''Jane Reumert'''

Jane Reumert was born in Denmark in 1942. Reumert has spent more than 40 years as a professional studio ceramist. She is one of Denmark’s most respected artists, and she has gained much international recognition. She began as many potters do working with stoneware clay, and making functional pottery. http://www.pulsceramics.com Over the course of her career, her dedication to the process and the material has given her an understanding and touch that is skilled and unique. In other professions, her tireless testing and questioning would most likely be called research. People in the visual-arts world do not usually consider their artwork to be research, but I it is hard to call her relentless investigation anything else.
Jane made changes to her work as it developed and matured into what it is today, though she has always sought to make vessels which were simple, and close to nature. Reumert’s work has many influences, but nature and calligraphy are “deep-rooted sources of inspiration”. In an interview she stated that as a child she was captivated with nature, with birds – and their nests, feathers and eggs. This acute observation of nature, especially of birds, is shown clearly in some of her more contemporary works that mimic eggs and feathers of birds. Bodil Busk Laurensen, "Jane Reumert's Fidelity to Ceramics," Ceramics: Art and Perception, No. 62, 2005, pp. 20-24. She has also mastered the art of calligraphy, and uses lettering styles from the East to the West.
After working on throwing and glazing techniques for more than thirty years her thoughts and practices took an interesting turn. She began to strive for translucency, and thin, refined beauty. In the late 1980’s she began working in porcelain clay, which can be translucent when it is thin and fired to very high temperatures. She began making paper-thin vessels, salt glazed, and fired to 1330 degrees Celsius (above 2300 F). In the early 1990s she began experimenting with the addition of fiberglass and other fibers added to her clay body, which enabled her to construct even thinner and bigger translucent forms. Her “eggshell” and “feather” vessels are so thin and light they seem to be from another world. She often displays her work on wire tripods, so the vessels appear to be floating above their shadows.http://www.pulsceramics.com Reumert’s work is a great metaphor of the fragility of our existence.
She has shown internationally, and has been awarded prizes for her work. Among these, in 1994, she was awarded Scandinavia’s most prestigious design prize: the Torsten and Wanja Soderberg Nordic Design Prize.Bodil Busk Laurensen, "Jane Reumert's Fidelity to Ceramics," Ceramics: Art and Perception, No. 62, 2005, pp. 20-24. Reumert has published writings and books on ceramic techniques, as well as on her own work. She writes in Danish, but some of her books have been translated into other languages. Examples of these are her two books, Transparency, and Contemporary Pottery. Recently Reumert has moved away from her home and studio on the island of Bornholm. She is now living and working close to Copenhagen. She is now using a wood-fired kiln, and has chosen to change from salt firings to soda firings, which are a bit more environmentally friendly. http:pulsceramics.com Just this past summer she took part in the Nordic Woodfire Marathon, and was a guest artist at the International Ceramic Research Center in Denmark.http:woodfiremarathon2007.blogspot.com


Links:

http://www.carlakoch.nl/

http://www.carlakoch.nl/kunstenaars/jreumert.html - images

http://www.ceramic.dk/






References:


Bodil Busk Laurensen, “Jane Reumert’s Fidelity to Ceramics,” ''Ceramics: Art and Perception'', No. 62, 2005, pp. 20-24.

http://woodfiremarathon2007.blogspot.com/

http://www.pulsceramics.com/janereumert.html