Tender Brick: The Material Epiphanies of Peter Hawkesby

In seeking sudden relief from the wheel’s tyranny of symmetry, Hawkesby gave credence to clay as a means of expression, rather than ceramics as a discipline. From here, the artist has consistently defied the strictures prescribing his medium, and in doing so has fashioned an individual approach to the making of craft within the context of Aotearoa, unlike anything encountered previously.
 
The exhibition’s title salutes Gertrude Stein’s 1914 publication Tender Buttons, a work considered a triumph of unorthodox Modernist experiment on one hand and decried as pretentious posturing on the other. Academic roadkill or scholarly redemption, the polarisation around Stein’s achievement compares to the reception Hawkesby’s ceramic art has received over the years. Stein’s insistence on the primacy of ‘looking’ unencumbered by the preconceptions of language is consistent with Hawkesby’s insistence on the incomparability of ‘touch’. The exhibition Tender Brick tracks the range and depth of Hawkesby’s ceramic production since his return to full-time making in 2016.
 
Tender Brick: The Material Epiphanies of Peter Hawkesby and Judy Darragh: Competitive Plastics are the last exhibitions to be presented at CoCA Toi Moroki in collaboration with Objectspace in Tāmaki Makaurau Auckland. These exhibitions mark the end of a 12-month programme partnership, which has seen the organisations work together to develop and deliver exhibitions and public programmes.

Watch an interview with curator Richard Fahey and walk through the exhibition.

Richard Fahey is a senior lecturer in Design and Contemporary Arts at Unitec, Tāmaki Makaurau Auckland. His research activity is focused on material culture of Aotearoa. As an independent writer, critic and advocate, he addresses contemporary cultural production and its reception via the historical and institutional contexts of education, critical discourse, collection and exhibition. His research takes the forms of writing, curating and participation in the visual arts sector as a teacher, speaker, assessor and critic.