cover: limited edition artist publication in collaboration with Eilis Searson - available on request
'You see right through me – "Art is only for beginners",' glazed stoneware brackets, kiln-formed glass
'You see right through my Membrane (drop)', stoneware bracket, kiln-formed glass
20 x 47 x 26cm
exhibited as part of Zsuzsi Roboz Scholar solo exhibition, Morley Gallery, London
'You see right through my Membrane (flat)', glazed stoneware brackets, kiln-formed glass
'You see right through me – Cell of Air', powder-coated metal brackets, glass, metal inclusions
cell of air
‘Stones of fire’ …fire up my neurons.
Brilliance reveals depth:
A polished surface of translucent matter
tricks light into entering - in part.
Some spinning photons bounce right off the slippery surface.
Those that flow through, risk getting split into prismed fractions.
My gaze rides the rays of light;
Invited in, through the sparkling membrane;
Time. slows. down.
A bubble here, a gurgle there,
trapped in a frozen sphere of air.
That rigid solid…
[My cell of air] --surrounded by layers of unflinching glass--
is the viewing platform to the universe.
Glass is to space what vacuum is to air
Air captures space and space captures air,
folding in and out… and in… and out…
Glass locks me in, or does it lock me out?
Tempting visual access, faux proximity, frozen liquidity, drooping surrealism, decelerating time
coming to a halt.
‘Our Inner Fish Runs Deep’, textured and kiln-formed glass, glazed stoneware, tubes, 32 x 63 x 36cm
'Silver Fish (small, corner, up)' , metal brackets, glazed stoneware, suckers, textured glass
'On the tip of my Tongue,' glazed stoneware bracket, mirror, rotary platform, glass
Throughout the year-long Zsuzsi Roboz Scholarship 2021/22 at Morley College, Veronika Neukirch explored the nature of translucent matter and its activating interplay with light, leading to a new interdisciplinary body of work.
The exhibition Art is Only for Beginners presents mixed media, glass and ceramic sculptures, poetry, performance, and an interactive multi-media installation. Delving into physics, philosophy, the evolution of human cognition, and accounts of visionary experience, she explores why light passing through glass is so deeply mesmerising to us.
Drawing on material and metaphorical translucency, Neukirch creates ‘transporting objects’—fabulous structures and creatures seemingly native to the remotest layers of the subconscious. Could these works, untethered from religious symbolism, act as bridges between everyday reality and a primordial plane of consciousness?
Glass, both literal and symbolic, serves as a portal: in architecture, it opens spaces to light; in microscopes and telescopes, it reveals realms beyond our natural perception. By tracing the evolution of vision, rooted in our aquatic ancestors’ experience of light refracting through water, the works hint at deep ancestral connections between perception, light, and consciousness itself.
Glass, both literal and symbolic, serves as a portal: in architecture, it opens spaces to light; in microscopes and telescopes, it reveals realms beyond our natural perception. By tracing the evolution of vision, rooted in our aquatic ancestors’ experience of light refracting through water, the works hint at deep ancestral connections between perception, light, and consciousness itself.
Drapery, another recurring motif, echoes Aldous Huxley’s contemplation in The Doors of Perception, in which he becomes entranced by the folds of his trousers, describing them as ‘a labyrinth of endlessly significant complexity.’ Drapery, long celebrated in art for its expressive potential, here becomes a metaphor for the folds of consciousness - layers through which the viewer may glimpse the essence of “Suchness” beyond representation.