Watch Eszter Imre’s career closely. She is emerging as one of the most exciting young artists in the growing genre “contemporary ceramic art & design,” which is the current option to the older studio potter model. The latter is not going away, but it is also not growing quickly either. Imre is part of a fresh generation in Europe, South America and Asia who approach creativity without boundaries. America, surprisingly, is less prominent in this movement than one would expect but this will surely change.
Click to see a larger image.
As a group her works are characterized by a sense of confidence, removed from craft’s art-envy insecurities. Their connection to tradition is flexible and not reverent. Tradition is a plugin that can be toggled on or off in these pieces.
Thirty-one year old Imre is Hungarian born but lives and works in Sweden. She says: “I started my career, moved to Sweden and met The One. He happened to be a proper geek and a stormtrooper (in the 501st Legion). Needless to say, everything changed…”
Click to see a larger image.
The hammer above is a perfect leitmotif for this artist whose work is based on the deconstruct/reconstruct loop; wound and heal but leave the scar. This is common enough as a way of working in ceramics, particularly in porcelain. Indeed, I think I might have reached a point of exhaustion with this thread, but what makes Imre’s work more exciting is that the act of damage does not define. It’s the beauty she extracts from the event that dominates, as we can see in the following series of plates. Yes, it is repetition of one format but it comes across with the same feeling as a series of thoughtful monoprints.
Click to see a larger image.
Click to see a larger image.
Click to see a larger image.
Click to see a larger image.
Click to see a larger image.
Click to see a larger image.
One senses more than just a hint of Fontana, although Imre is little into direct appropriation from the fine arts. She often finds richer soil in design. One might also think that there is a hint of Ruth Duckworth in the torn and reassembled wall piece below, but one would be mistaken. The influence is from paper, whose material presence is always just hiding like an intruder behind the porcelain. Imre works with the plate both as an artist (in the recycled factory plates below) and in fully functional mode as well.
Eszter Imre, from “must-produced,” 2012, porcelain. Click to see a larger image.
What I find interesting about some of her design is that the most contrived-seeming are more functional than they first appear. One of her earliest designs, a cafe latte combo, actually does a reasonable job. The contrivance of a handle on the rim works better than one would imagine, hooking the cup to the hand rather than having to hold it.
Eszter Imre, Caffe Latte, porcelain coffee pot with milk and sugar, 2010
Eszter Imre, Hug Cups, porcelain cups, 2010-12
Her website reveals a fresh personality, cerebral on one hand but decidedly not academic on the other. She does not explain herself as a conceptualist but in an inculcating, almost childlike manner. She sources her energies from sunshine, music and dance. It is not often in these days of required gravitas, death and bloody sex as poplar themes, to find an artist growing her work out of joy.
Eszter Imre, from “The Memory of Paper,” 2010, porcelain. Photograph by Mats Ringquist.
Imre claims as her most unique attribute the ability to write perfectly with left and right, both forwards and backwards and being able to do so simultaneously with both hands. This is a great metaphor for what she does creatively, as her work moves backwards and forwards between art and design with equal fluency and 3D penmanship. And this is just a taste. CFile will be publishing a much more complete review of her design work in issues to come.
Eszter Imre was born in 1985 in Hungary, according to her biography. Growing up in a historical town in the heart of Hungary she discovered her great interest towards the arts and crafts and started her artistic education at the age of 14. Getting to know ceramics during the high school years had significant influence on Eszter and she has been working with clay ever since. Restless, hungry for knowledge and adventures she has been traveling around her country and Europe receiving education in different universities within the field of arts, crafts and design. She earned her Master in fine arts (2010) and an MFA degree in design (2014) from the School of Design and Crafts (HDK, University of Gothenburg), Gothenburg, Sweden. After graduation she slowly started developing her own studio at the riverside of Gothenburg where she is creating her often curious and always personal objects in porcelain. Today she lives and works in Sweden, participating in residencies, exhibitions and shows around the globe. She works somewhere between the borders of art, crafts and design and creates all sort of ceramic objects, all with the same will: to push the limits of both the material and herself.
Garth Clark is the Editor-in-Chief of cfile.daily.
What do you think of Imre’s contemporary ceramic art + design? Let us know in the comments.
Eszter Imre, from “Table Ware,” 2012, porcelain jewelery for Herend Porcelain Manufactory. Photograph by Vivienne Balla. All photographs courtesy of the artist.
I love the series of wall plates. Fresh and inspiring.
Dear Garth Clark,
I very much enjoyed reading this article and I got a very spot on description on many things, almost as I was an outsider in this story. Even tho I am actually very much this story. I am Eszter Imre and I’m grearful for your words. Trying to bend the world around me is often a lonely and hard hobby but it always gives me new energy to try better when I recive such compliments. Thank you.