MARIA POL
Cluster Exhibitor | Cluster Contemporary | 2022
Imprint | 2022
Maria Pol is a Swiss-Italian ceramist and sculptor specializing in experimental ceramic techniques. After a career as conservator of ethnographic objects, she immersed herself in the creation of ceramics.
She obtained a diploma as music teacher and subsequently pursued studies in conservation of ceramics in 1985 in Florence (IT). She took up work placements and trainings in multiple European museums and worked long-term in Geneva at the ‘Musée d'Art et d'Histoire’ and at the ‘Museum der Kulturen’ in Basel.
Since 2015 she works as a freelancer and has dedicated herself predominantly to the creation of ceramics.
Maria Pol’s body of work explores our contemporary material culture and socio-political topics including the devastating impacts of climate change and excessive consumption of plastics and other waste materials. She feels compelled to raise awareness and uses clay significantly as a material to conserve our present reality, evoking an association to archaeological records of our time.
Imprint | 2022
“IMPRINT
Ceramics have enriched our knowledge of the past, from prehistory to the present day. Where as most other materials have decayed, clay artifacts bear witness to early human behaviour and activities due to their longevity, abundance and conservation.
Clay has become an indispensable material to express my ideas. Inspired by archaeological ceramics, which have accompanied me throughout my career as an art conservator, I use clay to create and capture traces of our time and my personal life.
With this work, I take the imprint of plastic food trays making an association to archeology. These new objects, carrying the history of time like ancient ceramic, testify to our way of consuming.
Presenting them in a pile underlines the endless accumulation of our rubbish that becomes part of our earth.”