The Surrey Art Gallery recently purchased work by local artist Keith Rice-Jones, known for his life-sized ceramics.
Five giant pieces ranging from 126 to 192 centimetres high have been on display in the reflecting pool of the Surrey Arts Centre courtyard since late February. Two of them are from his geometric series (slabs of clay formed into shapes) and three are from his organic series (slabs that are placed into moulds). The former showcases Rice-Jones’s love of shapes and relationships between forms and the latter carries figurative references that suggest a head and body.
About a month ago, a deal to buy the three taller pieces and have them added to the gallery’s permanent collection went through.
“Initially, it came as a surprise,” Rice-Jones said of the sale, which was made possible through fundraising efforts and a grant from the Canada Council for the Arts.
He added he was very excited to hear the news.
“It’s a major gallery. It sort of puts me on the national map.”
Rice-Jones, a member of the New Westminster Arts Council, was originally trained in England as a woodworker and turned to clay in the early 1970s.
“When people see the pieces, they don’t really get it, that they’re clay,” he said.
But his abstract sculptures, he noted, are made in the same way as a bowl or mug. The goal is to “push the edges” when it comes to size.
“No one is working in this scale,” Rice-Jones told the Record.
According to a Surrey Art Gallery write-up, his sculptures are neo-modernist in style and respond to the complexity of contemporary society.
“As a city of great cultural diversity, this work has particular resonance in Surrey with the three component figures symbolically representing the harmony of diversity.”
Asked why he seeks to push the envelope when it comes to his craft, Rice-Jones replied with, “It’s probably a guy thing.”
“Bigger is better,” he said with a laugh.
