Sculptors Society Interview

This is a transcript of a recent interview with Sami Butel, for the Society of Sculptors Queensland.

S.B. I see you working mostly in ceramic. As a sculptor is there any other mediums you enjoy working in?

R.B. I made a decision a few years ago to work within some self imposed limitations. One of these was to restrict the material I work with to ceramics. At the time there seemed to be certain freedoms to be gained by simplifying the language I was using. I’m not planning to change this in the short term, but I can certainly imagine my work in other media, steel, rubber, aluminium, are all interesting to me.

S.B. What is it about ceramics that you enjoy so much?

R.B. I don’t know whether I’d describe my relationship with ceramics as enjoyable. There are enormous frustrations involved; a lot of my work is uniquely unsuitable for fabrication in clay. Perhaps the most enjoyable part of ceramics are the people who live there. That and the extreme fringe dweller status of clayworkers, I have always been drawn to the difficult and deeply unfashionable.

S.B. What are the main concepts you're working with in your art?

R.B. Right now I am exploring surface tension and the meniscus. For a the last few years I have been making work that is trying to respond to questions raised by discoveries in elementary particle physics and quantum mechanics, like condensed matter theory and supersymmetry. I am intrigued by the way physics interprets and reveals the natural world. It’s a distillation; nature seems to be intensified when viewed through the reductive lens of science and mathematics. There is an extraordinary beauty and elegance revealed in this process, one that champions simplicity, completeness, balance, and order.

S.B. I see a real architectural feel to your work. Do you have a background in architecture/design?

R.B. I hear that quite a lot. I was once a footwear designer, although I don’t think that informs the work I am making now. I am certainly interested in architecture, although I am increasingly irritated by the efforts of some curators to blur the boundaries of art, architecture, and design. As talented as Hadid, Herzog, de Meuron, and Gehry, et al. may be, they don’t make art. I’m more interested in the tectonics of building, the behaviour of materials under stress, and the forces that govern (or curb) the possibilities of the built environment.

S.B. What shows/awards have you been involved in recently?

R.B. Late last year I had an exhibition in the Ivory Street window at Artisan, and I was involved in the end of year showcase for Southbank Institute of Technology.

S.B. What do you see for the future of sculpture/ceramics in QLD?

R.B. Honestly? Nothing Rosy.

S.B. What are your plans for developing your arts practice?

R.B. I knew there was something I’d forgotten…… Note to self; develop arts practice.