La Jornada: Danish potter Malene Hartmann seeks to make her pieces tell stories

Danish potter Malene Hartmann Rasmussen has a clear vision: to make ceramic pieces transcend that role to establish a narrative line and tell stories from clay, which is why she participated in the workshop Telling stories with clay, organized by the National Ceramics School (ENC), located in Tapalpa, Jalisco, whose program this year was dedicated to the specialization of techniques from Denmark.

In interview with The Day, The artist talks about her way of working to make pieces creations that tell stories and preserve myths.

“Ceramics in my country are experienced in a very special way. The oldest objects of this type are about 6 thousand years old. We agree that, as in almost all beginnings, its function was utilitarian. However, unlike other cultures, there was a way in which the creators provided stories to their pieces and, later, enamels, porcelain and stoneware clay, whose appearance is porous, were added.”

For Hartmann Rasmussen, pottery has been his canvas to capture figures from Danish mythology. In his works you can see forests, monsters and trolls, fairy tale characters that play with literary ideas from northern cultures. Thus it makes the viewer reflect on fantastic folkloric beings, traditional rituals and animism: animals, plants and mountains represent sensitive aspects.

“I began to delve into cinema and adopted the narrative ideas that that discipline uses. It was later, when I was 30, that I became interested in working with clay; I approached ceramics and went to the island of Bornholm, where I realized that we could transcend the routine of stopping making isolated pieces to only think about creating the next ones; I set out to tell stories, I turned to traditions and on that path I also encountered Mexican culture and its variety of peoples,” he explains.

Malene Hartmann’s work picked up after studying at the Royal Danish Academy. In 2011 she completed a master’s degree at the Royal College of Art in London, after which she has worked as a sculptor and potter. In 2018 he completed an artistic residency at the Victoria and Albert Museum in London.

Regarding Mexico, Hartmann Rasmussen said that he is amazed by the creativity of the original inhabitants and how some of their traditions have remained, although he assured that there is still much to do to preserve them, such as integrating them into an archive.

“The great fortune of Mexico is that through ceramics it can rescue many memories of ancient cultures. In Denmark, the idea of ​​the Mexican indigenous peoples is very popular for their great use of colors, strokes and way of expressing their knowledge. This is my second visit to this country; the first was more than two decades ago and since I saw the work they do it impressed me. It is important to preserve it, make archives and investigate. In my country we do the same, and from there visualize what the past of our people has been,” he assures.

“My work technique is based on intuition”

Ceramics from Denmark, unlike those made in Mexico, are made at high temperatures. That is why in modern times porcelain factories were established that massified production. However, companies hired artists, mainly painters, to create designs, experiment with glazes and other techniques. On the other hand, the artisan workshops remained, in which pieces could be made without any restrictions.

The artist explained that in her work she tries to combine memories, dreams and nostalgia from her childhood to build exuberant visual figures, loaded with detail and playing with elements. Through ornate surfaces and the play of compositions in his pieces, he delves into beauty and transforms it into disturbing objects.

“My technique and working method is based on intuition, I am very strict, I don’t stop, and any installation or sculpture must be perfect. Ceramics gives us the opportunity to shape our imagination and our realities; even new mythologies; that is why I focus a lot on my creative process.

“In this workshop I liked to see that the students were able to act as that bridge between our two countries, because we can recover stories and create new ones,” he concludes.