Tamara Van San twists and turns clay around her very own atmosphere of determined playfulness. The artist’s whimsical shapes stem from thorough material research that provokes the boundaries of ceramics. The structures are branches of Van San’s desire for a visual complexity with which she continues to excite herself and the viewer. The steadfast candy colours lure the space into a story where figuration no longer plays a role. The result is organic sculptures that invite us to a confusing association game.
Van San is very well aware of the positions she can push her material into, and of how she can incorporate found objects such as polystyrene foam, rubber balls, textile or gauze or even statuettes. Using her solid knowledge, she is constantly searching for new and different formal answers for which she does not follow a set script. She has no idea how her creative decisions will turn out beforehand. There is no blueprint, although the laws of the clay lend a gentle coercive hand. In addition, the artist shuns everything that is symmetrical. There are preferably no straight angles or sides, and nothing should be the same height or width. There is no centre to Van San’s focal point. She enjoys the confusion that arises from contrast.
The artist notes that clay – a raw earth material – allows you to make something out of nothing, which underlines the urgency of her work. The creative act is a way to stop worrying about what’s going on in her head. Van San therefore perpetuates a self-conceived impossibility: the perfect form. Until she is able to find it, she can keep on looking. Her oeuvre is built on fluid ideas where one thing flows from the other. She wants to know how to guide the gaze, how to generate feelings and thoughts. How do you let a sculpture speak?
In that sense, figuration is too easy for Van San. She finds abstract forms to be more fascinating – both for herself and the viewer. She wants to construct the visual arrival of her sculptures in a way that compels you to actively look in order to see. Figuration serves too much of a ready-made narrative, which restricts the audience’s creativity. It excludes a form of freedom. Like a DIY kit without instructions, her art leaves room for its own story. Her subjects are born out of shapes – shapes of which colours are a substantial component. The shades of her choosing are just as much a material to fuel our imagination.
Van San’s figures are reminiscent of the Chinese gongshi (贡石): found stones that are shaped by natural elements, and that appeal to the imagination to such an extent that they are literally placed on a pedestal. To be labelled a gongshi, there are a number of criteria such as hue, texture, and pattern, but also how the stone sounds when tapped. Van San sees the gongshi and its particular patterns as a substitute for a book in stone – stories for the eye. They are on an equal footing with passing strips of clouds or scents that evoke memories.
Van San’s works are given their title in an equally associative, visual manner. Words and letters take on different visual guises that are more important to the artist than their actual meaning. Her choice of words is also directly linked to the context of the moment. Each work could have received a different name if it had been finished another time. Van San emphasises that some things don’t need to be understood: ‘People sometimes seem to be afraid of what they don’t understand, but we shouldn’t want to understand everything.’ So she creates sculptures that are complex and not quite untitled, but that invite you to take on a visual challenge.
(Written and translated for the exhibition Tamara Van San. Confusion or Wonder at Hilde Vandaele Gallery from 7 May to 4 June 2023.)