THF Presents: Jim Hatch — Necklaces — Vernissage

Necklaces extends Unfunctional Functional Forms — Hatch's ongoing ceramic series of abstractions on traditional forms, which disfigures functional pottery traditions to ask what they mean to us now. Oversized cast hollow ceramic beads, far larger than anything wearable, are arranged into wall-based compositions that read as three-dimensional paintings, composing "necklaces" for the wall. The intimate, bodily object of the necklace is shifted in scale and removed from function entirely, becoming sculpture, ornament, and signal-of-self all at once, questioning the line between what is real and what is not.

The act of composition is itself part of the work: Thirty-six hollow slip-cast stoneware beads are composed and re-composed into twelve distinct works. Pieces can be arranged in any configuration at any time, extending the creative gesture across multiple planes — the making of the beads, and their endlessly variable arrangement into final works.

The sale of the work is part of the work, and the act of acquisition becomes an act of authorship. Rather than acquiring a fixed, finished object, the collector selects individual beads in collaboration with the artist, composing an arrangement that is theirs — a personal constellation drawn from the wider body of beads. No two collectors assemble the same one, and a collector can extend their collection over time, acquiring more beads and re-composing their constellation with each addition.

Each bead is decorated with underglaze pencil drawings using repetitive symbols, airbrushed ceramic pigments, and in-glaze text transfers, forming layers of narrative and social commentary. The repetitive symbols ground the viewer among the visual commentary while harkening back to ancient concepts of the unknown, spirituality, and religion. Broken fragments of the phrase "Live Laugh Love" run across the pieces, taken from the language of mass-market decorative culture. Through this kitsch borrowing of a saccharine slogan, Hatch comments: everything is made up — it just depends on what you choose to take seriously.