“A few years ago I would have said slip casting seems the most limiting process and likely the least free,” he says, “but the work of Mathew McConnell subverts that idea.
South Korean artist Minsoo Lee produces gorgeously precise, minimalist, and functional wares that draw from the porcelain tradition. Blue-and-white vessels with perfectly aligning geometric accents along each rim, they satisfy the brain like the moment after solving a puzzle. Lee aims to modernize traditional practices and he did so with +,–(2013) by applying multiple layers of porcelain slip one at a time (until each is semi-dry) into a mould on a spinning wheel. Welch says that slip casting is the best approach when “making multiple molds, which allows for numerous sets to be created in short order.” Although slip casting may seem like the most mechanical and restrained of the traditional techniques, Welch points to artists whose works contradict this assumption. “A few years ago I would have said slip casting seems the most limiting process and likely the least free,” he says, “but the work of Mathew McConnell subverts that idea. His work using a combination of casting and press moulding is, in my eyes, completely original…it’s rather spectacular actually.”