KISSES TEETH
KISSES TEETH - Keenan Vaughn Julies
Exhibition 01.08.2025 - 31.08.2025
ARS Kunstilinnak gallery
Wood Fired Ceramic Vessels
Some African cultures view the individual as the projection of a long line of ancestors that came before them. My pots are both studies in ancient artefacts and alien specimens from an imagined future. I am a science-fiction writer using clay, where through the study of silhouette do I question what it means to be a hunter gatherer in the year 2025. Living with few possessions requires versatility from what is to be carried on the voyage.
I am a kiln hunter, traveling to different countries to fire various kilns, seeking knowledge and testing boundaries within clay and glaze. Within Estonia I have come to love the wood kilns I have visited across Kohila, Viljandi and Linnaaluste. (Works exhibited from all three lcoations.) There is a potency and power to the soil of this country and its pagan roots echo many feelings I have for my own confused heritage. Each burning here has lead me to new frontiers within my practice.
Kisses Teeth, like the sound, is an expression belonging to the African diaspora. Perhaps even #rude in its uniqueness and diversity of vocabulary substitutions, there is no one word or one meaning for this expression. It is more felt than being able to be defined. Words can only describe so much.This series explores my fascination with the scarification patterns used by Central African peoples (Bakongo and others) that cut each other, or their children, for both beauty and spiritual atonement. In a culture where self is defined by the way others react to you, the look on other peoples' faces serves as your mirror, does a different set of fashion rules apply.
My goal is to reappropriate iconography from the continent and take it from vulgarity and hold it in a position of elegance, as intended.
Artist Bio: b 1987 USA, based out of Copenhagen Denmark. Adolescent years spent in Gauteng South African.
Self taught clay artist, working with coiling and wood burnings. Formative residencies: Guldagergård Denmark, ICS Hungary and Taoxichuan Longquan China.
Support: This project was made possible in part to production financing from Danmarks Kunstfond, the Shinhar Foundation and with research assistance from the Royal Africa Museum, Tevuren Belgium.
Exhibition 01.08.2025 - 31.08.2025
ARS Kunstilinnak gallery
Wood Fired Ceramic Vessels
Some African cultures view the individual as the projection of a long line of ancestors that came before them. My pots are both studies in ancient artefacts and alien specimens from an imagined future. I am a science-fiction writer using clay, where through the study of silhouette do I question what it means to be a hunter gatherer in the year 2025. Living with few possessions requires versatility from what is to be carried on the voyage.
I am a kiln hunter, traveling to different countries to fire various kilns, seeking knowledge and testing boundaries within clay and glaze. Within Estonia I have come to love the wood kilns I have visited across Kohila, Viljandi and Linnaaluste. (Works exhibited from all three lcoations.) There is a potency and power to the soil of this country and its pagan roots echo many feelings I have for my own confused heritage. Each burning here has lead me to new frontiers within my practice.
Kisses Teeth, like the sound, is an expression belonging to the African diaspora. Perhaps even #rude in its uniqueness and diversity of vocabulary substitutions, there is no one word or one meaning for this expression. It is more felt than being able to be defined. Words can only describe so much.This series explores my fascination with the scarification patterns used by Central African peoples (Bakongo and others) that cut each other, or their children, for both beauty and spiritual atonement. In a culture where self is defined by the way others react to you, the look on other peoples' faces serves as your mirror, does a different set of fashion rules apply.
My goal is to reappropriate iconography from the continent and take it from vulgarity and hold it in a position of elegance, as intended.
Artist Bio: b 1987 USA, based out of Copenhagen Denmark. Adolescent years spent in Gauteng South African.
Self taught clay artist, working with coiling and wood burnings. Formative residencies: Guldagergård Denmark, ICS Hungary and Taoxichuan Longquan China.
Support: This project was made possible in part to production financing from Danmarks Kunstfond, the Shinhar Foundation and with research assistance from the Royal Africa Museum, Tevuren Belgium.
