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born in Istanbul is known for four particular defining elements in her work, three of which this exhibition overturns. Firstly, she had taken the most ubiquitous of pottery forms, the bowl, and given it her own distinctive minimalist signature. Secondly, Siesbye has created some of the most superb, singing, color-saturated, matt glazes, colors that bring to mind the blue waters of the Aegean and the scorched earth and bright sun of Turkey, her country of birth. Thirdly, her pots have been defined by their thin walls that resonate so cleanly between inside and outside. Fourthly, Siesbye’s bowls are miraculous in the way that they defy gravity and are suspended in space. The new works are powerful but they change the nature of her game quite dramatically. The one thing that remains in place is that she is still working with the bowl and it is still minimalist, if anything, even more so. But the color has been replaced with a black glaze, shiny, reflective and dense. The thin wall is gone too and is replaced with a double-walled bowl that creates a new wall that is two inches thick. Gone too is the weightlessness, these vessels have a new sense of both gravity and gravitas. They pull towards the earth whereas her previous work reached for the skies. In the process they speak more about mass than volume and have a new sculptural power. While this direction is new it is not without precedent. Siesbye experimented with double walls when she was still in Turkey in 1957 and then made a few designs based on this technique for the Royal Copenhagen Porcelain Factory. But in these seven monumental pots Siesbye has achieved a new voice, a new presence, but with same the startling elegance they have always possessed. The first two of these vessels made their appearance at Siesbye's recent retrospective exhibition at the Arts and Industry Museum in Copenhagen. The works were acquired for the museum's collection. This is her first full solo exhibition with these new forms. A small selection of Siesbye's earlier style of thin walled works with a brighter glaze palette will also be on view.
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