Her Unstable Materials by Stella Baraklianou at BLANK_ Leeds

BLANK_ is a gallery run by the School of Creative Arts at University Centre Leeds, one that showcases new contemporary creative practice in the city. It’s currently home to Her Unstable Materials from Stella Baraklianou, an artist whose practice is based in photography and textiles as well as ceramics.

Clay actually takes centre stage at the show where Baraklianou presents a new body of work with interactive elements that create a bridge between the current moment and her previous photographic and textile works. These forms are rooted in the Greek tradition with its recognisable rounded vessels with long necks, but they’re pressed, elongated, stretched and standing precariously on delicate legs, making them thoroughly contemporary. These additions reference chance, precarity and invisible algorithms – energies at work in the background that affect us, our thoughts and surroundings.

Before coming to ceramics, photography was Baraklianou’s core practice, and although the medium was entirely different, the subject matter was still centred around the object. Her images captured carefully constructed still lives which could quite easily be art installations in three-dimensional form. Instead, the artist often used these images as part of the final installation along with other objects. Her photographic process is experimental and she often uses reflective gold surfaces to achieve a type of image mirroring or doubling.

Her Unstable Materials proves that going outside of one’s comfort zone or chosen field can yield fascinating results – Baraklianou’s use of ceramics can, in some ways, be likened to her photographs but it also provides a new layer to her art practice, opening new possibilities through the satisfyingly raw process of manipulating, shaping and glazing clay. She describes it as “intuitive”, without the use of preparatory sketches and instead using the clay itself as her guide.

As well as pushing the boundaries of the ceramic form, Baraklianou holds an impressive CV with a practice-based PhD from Goldsmiths College London. She has taught Contemporary Art and Photography as a Senior Lecturer, and worked at many universities in the UK and abroad.