As featured in Unfolded Magazine Issue 11
Contemporary art met the traditional world of ceramics. If at first
glance unusual, the pairing of ceramicists at Villeroy &
Boch and celebrated typography artist Ebon Heath, join to create
100 unique works of art, in a project entitled Second Glance. The
project, which we got to see at the London launch, is an extension
of Villeroy & Boch's time honoured tradition of working with
artists and placing this in a more modern context. Ebon tells us he
was initially "intrigued by trying something new with Villeroy
& Boch. It was very unexpected and not what you would think of
my work, from the 3D structures." It was a challenge and allowed
him to play with new materials, creating the LoopArt collection,
which is described as a 'symbiosis of tradition, trend and
contemporary current.'
Describing himself as somewhat of a nomad, Ebon tells us, "Half of
the year I'm based in Berlin, the remainder in Bali, Indonesia for
silversmithing and casting, and Brooklyn is still my home where I
go to hustle." His home is where the artist first emerged. Having
studied grapic design at Rhode Island School of Design, he
reminisces how he saw Calder's Circus as a child, and for him, when
he saw that aged five at the Whitney Museum of American Art in New
York, "it really transformed me as an individual and I would always
be more focused towards the arts." Parallels can be drawn
from Ebon's typographic ballet performances and aside from Calder,
Graffiti was a massive influence. He notes that "you don't see it
aesthetically in my work," but growing up in the 70s and 80s
in NYC, "it was unavoidable, it was everywhere." With a commercial
graphic design background, Ebon describes how "for me it is about
the science of graffiti, the science of the MC. Graffiti is about
vandalism and UPs, for me, my work is about taking your time
and being methodical. I was the kid who was studying all the
graffiti guys. I did my little bits, but I would never consider
myself an graffiti artist, but more of a graffiti nerd."
"The kick in the ass" in describing his fondness for
typography, "Is how graphic design, formerly was all about graffiti
- so how do we take graffiti and apply it to Bauhaus and
post-modernism. All these other things that kids weren't thinking
about, but it was already there." Looking at the individual
characters, and all the other characters surrounding the letters,
we can see the love of language, the love of type, the love of form
and a love for the sound of words. He recalls listening to jazz as
a young child, his dad is a recording engineer, "so I was in the
studio a lot, there is a beauty in words and vocabulary. The
lyrical aspect of it, when you read prose - when you remove the
musicality, what is retained?"
He has a broad ranging body of work, encompassing graphic design,
fashion, typographic mobiles, spatial installations, jewellery, and
performance art, however, "for my generation and those below me, I
don't think we need to define ourselves in these limited roles as
designer, or sculptor." He describes having, primarily a language
and "the notion of once you have a confident language, creativity
is a faith and a religion, more so than a hobby." There is a clear
vision that Ebon has with his work,"I think if your language is
confident, you can apply it to a skateboard or T-shirt or
installation and so on. I don't think you have to be in these
barriers of a product or gallery world. Whatever can push your
language further is what excites me."
The language of his work is very much geared to expressing the
content of word, but also giving the viewer the potential to find
their own understanding. Of the Villeroy & Boch collaboration,
he says there is something very classical about working with
ceramics. On closer inspection of the LoopArt, we see the rich
history of the Mettlach based company retained but modernised,
with the colours and imagery creating a vivid display. It indeed
takes several 'Second Glances' to decipher their origin, so
abstracted the imagery is. The typographic mobile, another of the
Second Glance works, glazed with the LoopArt pattern, certainly
caught our attention. The poetry associated with the creative
process is "a literal script to the process of this collaboration,"
says Ebon and the 166 individual ceramic letters, when viewed
in 3D, do make an immersive visual impact.
Second Glance by Ebon Heath
Words dance inside eyes
Imagination sings out loud,
awakening slumber time
When first impressions touch
Anxious phoenix dreams, that
reveal surprise petals.
Blooming on Second Glance
From simply viewing photographs of the typography, it is very much
a 2D organic shape of words or poetry projecting from the centre of
a mouth perhaps, however, in real life, in 3D, we see there are
more layers, constructs and intersections. For Ebon, there is "a
design sensibility in my brain. Right now I feel my work is much
more about engineering sculptures and I've created these 3D grid
systems that are basically harnesses, like an energy, whether it
comes out in the shape of a stripe, cone, line or circle. Basic
geometric shapes that I have as grids. Same way you have
traditional graphic design for a magazine, you have theses grid
structures." It emerges that the transition from "two dimensional
type to three dimensional type is really based off the same
principles but now I'm the client."
We see patterns in the mobile pieces, like shells of ancient
creatures in his work, even helical structures of DNA, perhaps,
"The big thing I'm into is sacred geometry and how the spiral of
the hurricane Sandy that hit New York, for example, is similar to
the same spiral in Pythagorean theorem, golden means or ratio to me
is really exciting. My work definitely takes on that same sense of
mathematics."
What of the traditional book and digital sphere? Are they not
another physical representation of the language? "Books are the
best way to read word," but his work is "not meant to be read in a
literal sense, it is meant to be felt, it's not linear. Words are
confined to a page, almost like a jail and we bastardise them, we
use them and spit them out." Words exist in all languages and
are even discarded over time. Ebon has an appreciation for the
intricacies of words and revels in the complexity of constructing a
story or poem. "If you look closely at the details of our words,
maybe that will also open up our eyes and make us look at our own
lifestyles or even the petals on a flower," pointing at a flower in
the room "I'm intrigued by looking at the smallest stamen on a
flower. Finding the detail, the molecular structure of it
all."
You have to "listen with your eyes" says Ebon, it is like how you
would react to someone you think is a "gangster on the street, but
take away the layers and he is really a sweetheart." In searching
for the meaning behind the visual poetry and in reference to
Villeroy & Boch, it is about "awakening the company", formed in
1748, from its "slumber". Re-branding and reconnecting the company
with the arts, the result of which, is an interdisciplinary
collaboration, whereby Ebon likens the phoenix to "burning it's old
self and emerging from the ashes, anew." The process may have been
a interesting learning curve for both, a remix, the outcome of
which may see new ventures. Over the years, Villeroy & Boch has
won many design and innovation prizes and most recently, the Red
Dot Design Award 2012.
Change and transformation for an artist and indeed a global company
is a positive thing and Ebon leaves with a few parting words, "I
deal with word association" and sometimes "I love the silence of
not understanding," perhaps because, in the effort to visualise the
invisible, "I have such crazy language dreams." Where those words
may lead or what changes may arise, is another journey.
Interview and main portrait:
Nardip Singh
Other images supplied by Parker Hobart, © Villeroy & Boch