OUR Glass (2021)
NOOD New Form Art House, San Juan, La Union
The world has been stripped of facts & logic. In its place stand fake news & pseudosciences: widespread world conspiracies, a bid for moral high ground & political agenda, and a collective that credits the moon for enlightenment. Jose Solon Perfecto turns the hourglass of another year in the pandemic — time ticking in grains from the scorched rice fields by his studio, set against the pace of metropolitans: seemingly a race for the next human behavior to cancel.
And so Solon Perfecto presents a naked set of bowls in traditional form alongside distorted vases and bottles. Brushed or dipped in glaze to highlight the contrasting texture of clay and glass, the shapes exhibit flaws that intentionally render them useless.
As a protest to the aesthetic of beauty only when it has function, and with ironically the deepest empathy for the desperate urge of modern society to perform, Solon Perfecto petitions for essential human needs through Our Glass, a collection of malfunctionalware as art.
In these 24 ceramic pieces, stone replaces reflection. Earth and speck are burnt to reveal NOOD skin, the pale strokes of smooth glaze as the appropriation of presentability & content — as on Zoom calls, on Instagram Lives, in 30-second TikToks — while its actual physical vessel lies exposed to the harsher elements of reality. Our Glass is a collection of ceramics that doesn't reflect so much as patent the abrasive quality of our times. As an ode to humanity's innate dysfunction, Solon Perfecto has instead focused on the pieces' purpose: to be held, to be seen, to take up space in a home.
-Aussy A. Perfecto (2021)
