An architectural background influenced Björk Haraldsdöttir's approached to making ceramics. Jane Audas finds out more.
Björk left Iceland in 1987, when she was 19, to undertake a BA and an MA in Architecture at Glasgow School of Art.
At the time you were not able to study the subject in her home country, which meant she got a grant to take her on her chosen path to study abroad. Iceland's contrasting architectural heritage, with the small Nordic Library in Reykjavik by Alvar Aalto on one hand and the sculptural Hallgrimskirkja, Reykjavik's Cathedral on the other, inspired and brought her to architecture. But they have also directly inspired some of the ceramic pieces she has made during her career.
Her preferred method of making is handbuilding, 'I build almost entirely with slabs, she explains. Which is where the architectural training fits in. I find that it gives me more control over what I want to do. It allows me to slightly put pieces off kilter, when I want them to go off kilter. I can push slabs in or out and slightly bend them after I've built them. And then the kiln does the rest." She likes to build partner shapes, vessels in series together, interested in how multiple patterns can fool the eye: I might have identical shapes, but they have got completely different pattern treatments on all of them.
It alters how they look quite substantially. I find it quite fascinating to see that."
As soon as Björk started making ceramics she was decorating them. 'At first I was using very simple patterns that I translated into the clay, stitching patterns from Icelandic or Nordic textiles. Then it gradually evolved into what it is now. I still think quite a lot of my work is reminiscent of textiles; it almost looks like a cloth bas been dropped over the form.'
