Forward Facing
The world of ceramicist Kinska is, it’s safe to say, not quite like the one the rest of us live in. The Argentinian-born artist has a condition called pareidolia that causes her to see faces in everything from a splodge on a notebook to the pattern of a brick wall. “My friends know when I am with them,” she explains. “When I see a stain, I will draw an eye.”
“When I see a stain, I will draw an eye.”
Kinska’s condition is the starting point of her work – wide-eyed faces stare out of everything from pen pots to coffee cups. “If someone buys a cup from me with a face, I like to create a bond with the person and the object,” she explains. “When people go to my studio, I see that childish face again when they see the colours and the characters.”
Many childish faces will no doubt be spotted at NOW Gallery in July, when Kinska’s exhibition My Opera House opens. The installation features a house, a wall of sketches, and ceramic figures, including nurses, a girl coming out of a black hole and a crying sky. It sounds immersive and surreal – appropriate qualities when you learn it was influenced by Werner Herzog’s Fitzcarraldo, the 1982 film that follows the title character, played by Klaus Kinski, in the Amazon. “He is obsessed with building an opera house in the jungle,” explains Kinska. “I always joke I want to make my opera house. Finally, it has happened.”
“I believe I never stopped making because when we are children, we are always making things. I create characters. I think it’s a really fun way in which to live your day.”
Kinska’s journey to her opera house certainly has a few chapters – all of which are relayed in her artwork. The most recent incident is Kinska’s time in hospital in 2018; following a bicycle accident, she had to have a hip replacement. It’s this moment that is in focus at NOW Gallery. “It not about the accident itself,” she says. “Instead, it is about recovery, healing and the importance of love and creativity to transform pain into something meaningful and beautiful.”
The 39-year-old adapts to what life throws at her. She grew up in Posadas in the north-east of Argentina – “a tropical place surrounded by rivers” – and moved to Buenos Aires at the age of 17 to study fashion design. After working as a designer in Brazil, she fell out of love with fashion and came to London in 2008. While waitressing, she experimented with both street art and illustration. But it was a trip to a pottery class at Hackney City Farm in 2010 that proved transformative. “I fell in love with ceramics at first touch,” she says.
Growing her reputation slowly, selling work on Etsy and through Instagram (she now has over 36K followers), Kinska predated the ceramics trend now taking off in art and design. “Sometimes people ask me when I started,” she says. “I believe I never stopped making because when we are children, we are always making things. I create characters. I think it’s a really fun way in which to live your day.”
My Opera House by Kinska is at NOW Gallery on Greenwich Peninsula, 4 July-22 September.
