ceramics & sculpture

Kaplan: Your background is originally in ceramics but I gather you weren't using ceramics in a conventional sense, what types of objects did you create or present?

Kokkinos: My main interest in ceramics, which has carried over into sculpture, deals with containers and the idea that a container is situated in relation to a body. When I'm working with clay, I'm making containers that can be moved or picked up and therefore contained by a body. When I'm dealing with larger sculptural pieces, I'm still talking about containers only now, I'm presenting containers that bodies can be put into. So, instead of the body regulating the space of the container, as it would in the ceramics, the body is being regulated by a container such as a chair or a room. I find that this flip flop of container / contained is a very interesting way for me to work.

Kaplan: Are you going to continue to work with found objects in your in your future pieces?

Kokkinos: Yes, I enjoy working with found objects and I will be working with some similar sorts of ideas with found ceramic objects. But I can't say that I would totally limit my practice just to working with found objects because I find that my work is most successful when I'm also creating objects, e.g. making ceramic objects and constructing mixed media / sculptural objects.

Kaplan: So, you certainly haven't abandoned the ceramics.

Kokkinos: No, I think the ceramics play off of the sculpture. Both ceramics and sculpture are three-dimensional mediums. They're about space and bodies in space. I find those concepts intriguing. The idea of intimacy or personal space, I seem to relate more to in ceramics and the idea of a public or cooler socially modulated space seems to be exhibited in my larger sculptural works.

CHUO Radio:89.0, Ottawa, Click Here,Mitchell Kaplan, Jan. 19, 2000

Penelope
Kokkinos
visual artist