Narrating Space

Abstract

Preece does not explore the chaos, the urgency, nor the dirt of the kitchen but the quality of silence after everyone has left. Each composition, alike the movement of air, seeping in-between the occupants and their home, creating silhouetted memories, latent with the clutter and conversation of a busy meal. That she chooses the room with the role of sustaining and nourishing achieves something poignant; it causes objects otherwise minimal in detail to become heavily contextualised, tethered by the ‘traits’ of belonging to the warmth, the love and continuity of a lively family home. Zoe Preece is drawn to thresholds, to transient spaces, to the in-between. Taking notice of moments that might go unseen, she contemplates the meniscus on a spoon filled to the point of tipping, or the precarious balance of two cups stacked one on top of the other on a kitchen surface, each on the brink of something. She recognises an uncertain beauty here and a longing that is resonant of human experience. The white porcelain clay she uses becomes a metaphor, its movement from one state to another embodying aspects of human being.