Grenville Davey
Working in slipware for the first time in 1998, Grenville Davey has produced a beautiful work reminiscent of many domestic objects. Exploring the relationship between weight and the fragile nature of the starting material “Little Emperor” asks us to look again at what, at first, seems a familiar shape.
“The original idea was to take a cast from a chemical bottle – a reducing vessel, an aesthetically pleasing object but one that is absolutely functional. I always wanted to distort this object but I found that working in plaster had it’s own logic. Working with a reductive process like turning plaster is almost the opposite of what I am used to doing with metals. Little Emperor is a two-part piece – like a hip joint – an uncomfortable marriage between the two parts.”
“It has been interesting for me to make a multiple. I see this work as an object with a multiple life. Now I think, ‘the processes are there and learnt, why not use the form to explore new materials?’”. He has subsequently used aluminium and turned oak.
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