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Welcome
to the website of
Gisela Lücke
Sculptural objects made of clay and porcelain
erected or thrown and assembled
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Move the mouse pointer over the collage
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Porcelain
The circle, the square, the triangle, the spiral, the cross and the column are the elementary forms of nature and of life. As a manner of perception they mirror ways and styles of life. These forms can take on any shape, as they have developed by movement.
Although porcelain is known for its lightness and transparency, it is actually very brittle while being processed. I approach my theme - shape - with this wonderful material by making use of properties, which are not traditionally associated with it, such as thickness and brittleness, to express myself in an artistic form. By this, a contrast is achieved between heavy objects of porcelain, which may appear transparent again at their break edges, and sculptures, in which light and lightness are translated into form.
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Bricks
Brick is an industrially manufactured product made of a malleable material - clay. I have used it as the raw material for my creative processes in my works "Head" and "Stele". The given structure is taken up and distorted by cutting, carving and squeezing. The pieces of work that are thus created, are modular compositions combining industrial products with an artistic form.
The head has a mental affinity to the brick, an ancient building material for human housing. The head is the seat of all our senses. As a skull it is the architecture that encloses our thoughts and our creativity. Buildings, generally speaking, are objects, that reach to the top. One brick on the other the building grows vertically. The stele is a vertical sculpture.
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Stoneware
Nature with its richness of forms, rhythms, colours and shapes is the source of my inspiration when I work with clay. It provides me with inspirations for my designs and with the raw materials - metal, stone, ashes, earth - from which I produce my glazes. It is fascinating to experience the elemental forces and the interaction of earth, water, fire, air and space.
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Raku
The elemental exposure while handling fire fascinates me. When were working with clay we are exposed to the four elemental forces. Earth itself is an element. Clay has to be wet in order to be worked and moulded, i.e. there has to be water, fire is needed to bake it and give it its permanent shape and air is the energy for this transformation, as it lets the fire burn.
More about the origins and the art of raku.
The Origins of Raku
The word "raku" was first coined in 16th century Japan to designate a distinction which was conferred by the emperor to a potter in Kyoto. Raku means contentment, happiness, joy or "the best of the world". This distinction was a gold seal for Raku I. It was awarded to the potter who created the crockery for the tea ceremony, which is very important in Zen Buddhism.
Introduction
More about the art of raku.
The Art of Raku
The objects, which have been produced from very refractory material and baked at 1210 °C, are glazed and put into a gas fire in the garden, where they are baked at about 1000 °C. After an hour or two the temperature is reached. With the help of a long pair of pliers and refractory gloves, I withdraw the red-hot pieces from the oven and quickly transfer them into a hole in the ground or into sealable metal pots filled with wood shavings, straw, dry leaves or something similar. For lack of air the fire draws the oxygen from the clay and the glaze. The traces, which are left by these reducing agents and the pliers on the viscous glaze, give the pieces of raku their specific expressivity and individuality.
Back to the introduction
The Origins of Raku.
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Recent Pieces of Work
!New Phases of Life – New Phases of Work!
The material I chose depends on the expression I want to convey and can be anything from coarse dark clay to fine white porcelain. Though there are no limits to searching and trying out there definitely are limits to finding and succeeding. The mysteries of the original elements are unfathomable. But still I constantly try to explore new possibilities.
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Curriculum Vitae
Born 1946 in Ahrensfelde near Hamburg
Since 1971 living in Unna near Dortmund
Since 1985 with my own studio
1992 certified as a ceramist in an external exam
1992-2002 exhibition room for ceramics and art in the old part of Unna
Since 2002 Exhibition room and gallery with a garden of sculptures in Unna-Massen
Since 2001 Member of the Federation of Fine Artists in South Hesse (BBKS)
Since 2005 International Contemporary Ceramic Art (ICCA)
Further Training
1995/1996 Academy for the Fine Arts, Vulkaneifel, Kurt Spurey, Vienna
1995-2003 annual workshops with Kurt Spurey, head and stele
1997 European Academy for the Fine Arts, Joachim Lambrecht, Trier
2000 Centre for the Arts Bosen Mill, Sandor Kecskeméti
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Individual and Collective Exhibitions
in Germany and Abroad
since 1989 (selected)
Permanent Exhibitions
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Reports and Features
Television channel
Hessischer Rundfunk (HR), "Hessenschau"
February 2000
Private TV channel Rheinland-Pfalz
April 2000
TV channel
WDR 3, "Aktuelle Stunde"
June und July 2002
Newspaper "Hellweger Anzeiger" of 14 June 2003
"Kunst im Reihen-Endhaus" (Art in the last House of a Terrace), Text: Lars Reckermann
Newspaper "Westfälische Rundschau" of 28 December 2003
"Offenes Ohr und Zeit für ein Gespräch" (An Open Ear and Time for Conversation)
Feature
TV channel
WDR 3
on the exhibition FORMSTEIN
and my studio in
August 2000
Radio
Antenne Unna
July 2002
Catalogue
FORMSTEIN Kopf und Stele
(THE SHAPED ROCK - Head and Stele),
February 2000
Cover
of the magazine "Ziegelindustrie International"
Bauverlag, December 2000
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Move the mouse pointer over the collage
As they are baked at extremely high temperatures, my sculptures can withstand the rigours of winter in the garden.
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Recent Pieces of Work
Changes to this Web Site
Current and planned exhibitions
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Contact
Links
How to find me
Electronic business card
(for MS Outlook and Outlook Express)
Please use our contact form for communications, questions, comments and suggestions, if you want to send them to me
by e-mail.
Shared studio of Anne Seeger and Gisela Lücke
Sculptures, installations, heads, steles, walls, reliefs, etc. of clay and porcelain
Exhibition in cooperation with the institute for mathematics of the Ludwig Maximilian University in Munich
Cleaning agents for musical instruments
There is plenty of room to park your car.
In the direct vicinity of the bus stop "Mittelstraße" serviced by lines R51, T47, C41"
Opening hours:
Visits after prior arrangement by telephone
Click with the mouse onto the map to load a bigger version to print out.
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How to get there:
- coming from the A44
- take the A1 in the direction of Bremen
- leave the A1 at the exit for Unna Centre
- at the Unna-Centre exit take the direction
Unna-Massen
- at the traffic lights turn right towards Unna-Massen
- at the traffic lights turn right into the Provinzialstraße
- follow the priority road to the left into the Kleiststraße
- carry straight on until you have passed the crossing of
the Massener Hellweg (Dortmund to the left and Unna
to the right) at the traffic lights carry straight on into the
Bismarckstraße
- at the second street turn right into the Mittelstraße
- cross the crossing diagonally and enter the
Königsborner Straße
- the first street to the right is Auf der Bleiche
- the number 15 is situated in the right-hand bend
coming from Dortmund turn left from the Massener Hellweg into the Bismarckstraße
- continue as above
coming from Unna
pass the A1 on the Hansastraße
turn right into the Reckerdingsweg
and turn left immediately into the Gerberstraße
then immediately to the left into Auf der Bleiche
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Photo Credits
About
Dirk Spönemann ('Unsere Kirche', 21/7/2002)
Gisela Lücke (Stele 6, 7 and 8 and Cross), all others
Thomas Kersten, Foto-Design, Unna
Thomas Kersten, Foto-Design, Unna (Bewegung/Movement, Alles ist Tanz/Everything is a Dance, Begegnung/Encounter, Kopf/Head - Rose, Aufstieg/Ascension, Geschirr/Crockery, Schale/Bowl, Ruine/Ruin)
Gerhard Faller-Walzer, Hamburg (Engel/Angel)
Gisela Lücke (Vase Sculptures, 2x African Bowl, Steles)
Gisela Lücke (Stele)
Gabriele Brunken, Wachtberg (Steles, Begegnung/Encounter), all others
Thomas Kersten, Foto-Design, Unna
Roman Grzelak ('Hellweger Anzeiger', 14/06/2003')
upper line, picture on the right: from the booklet "Zum Trost/Consolation",
compiled by Roland Leonhardt, SKV Edition, Lahr
upper line left, centre left centre right and lower line left: unknown friendly visitors,
lower line right: Karl Hartmann (Westfälische Rundschau, 7/12/2002)
Copyright: All pictures on this web site are copyrighted. Any commercial or private use without the approval of the authors is prohibited.
Web mistress:
Concept of the web site:
Web design:
Contact
Last update:
I am not responsible for the content of other web sites. I do not accept any liability for material, pictures and information provided on external pages linked to from my pages.
Contact
Last update:
I am not responsible for the content of other web sites. I do not accept any liability for material, pictures and information provided on external pages linked to from my pages.
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I woke up this morning and looked out of the window.
There they are, Gisela's creations!
Brick steles that wind and coil, ranging from the size of children to enormous bodies.
Between them columns are lying hidden between the bushes and the shrubbery. Another specialty of Gisela: They are neither reaching for the sky nor have they fallen. But they are resting on the ground.
When you walk through the garden you will suddenly come upon many other smaller cubes, gnomes, mushrooms, faces and other little objects.
There are chains winding around trees in a surprising range of colours, shades of black, grey, russet, green and even blue.
And there is that colour white, porcelain, but not with the fragility and delicateness of China tea cups, but massive slabs, heaped onto each other, spiralling upwards, creating vaults and narrowing at the top, thus breaking the light in different ways and casting strange shadows. By that white ceases to be white, but turns multicoloured.
Gerhard Faller-Walzer, Hamburg and Wust, October 2003
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Gallery of Creative Ceramics
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Gallery of Ceramic Craftwork
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Move the mouse pointer over the pictures
Workshop
Studio
Raku-Baking
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Moulding · Centring · Opening · Raising · Shaping
The work processes at the potter's wheel
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Raku oven with two gas burners
At a 1000 °C the baking process is ended. With the help of a pair of pliers and gloves I withdraw the hot pieces from the oven.
The final reduction of the pieces in the hole in the ground is finished.
The burned wood shavings are washed off in a zinc tank. Not all of the pieces withstand this procedure. Some of them break.
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Creation of a lying stele at a workshop with Kurt Spurey in Rheinheim
in the studio of Anne Seeger in 1999
Cutting the model
It's a start
Discussing the project
The next step
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At the AWO kindergarten in Unna-Lünern, 1998
Performance \"Straw Fire\" Unna, 1999
\"Citizen and Authorities\", Zweibrücken (Germany) 1999
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Sometimes I am asked to do pottery with the children at a kindergarten. This is important for me, as I believe that creativity, beauty and individuality can work as an antidote to consumerism, television and computers.
Once we wanted to build a high column of tiles. We had a week at our disposal. Each of the 75 children at the age of three to six years got a slab of soft and wet clay. They were supposed to mould their own faces or one of their favourite toys from it. One of the boys placed bars in front of his face. I asked him, what it was. "Can't you see, it's me in prison," he replied. I was startled and asked him: "Why are you in prison? You're such a nice boy. I like you and I don't understand it." He answered: "I don't understand it either, but that's where I belong."
Another boy: The teacher told me, that this boy always refused to join in when the children were painting or working on something. He always painted houses with a round roof. At home he was criticized for it, as he was told, that a roof had to be pointed. As he continued to paint round roofs, he was told that he was too stupid. That was why he started to refuse to paint. After four days the boy came up to me cautiously. "Can I make a tile, too?" "Off course you can," I answered. Off course he moulded a house with a round roof. I told him, that I really liked his house and would love to live in it. I don't believe that I have ever seen a happier face than his. Afterwards he created one house with a round roof after the other. There are a lot of such experiences in Kindergarten I could recount. They are very important for me.
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Performance "Straw Fire"
Another performance at a day of the arts I organized. I have laid out a human body with straw, which I covered roughly with pieces of clay, before I poured alcohol over it and lighted it. While the straw burns with a blazing flame and a lot of smoke, the clay gets rather hard, so that I could offer the pieces of it, that had been blackened and reshaped by the flame, to the audience.
After the square had been swept, a black figure on the asphalt continued to be visible for weeks.
back
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Wir befinden uns in einem verlassenen ehemaligen Jugendamt, einem Ort, in dem viele Schicksale gespeichert und verwaltet wurden. Wir ahnen die große Distanz zwischen Amt und Bürgern – Jugendamt und Jugendlichen. Bleibt der junge Mensch im Amt auf der Strecke?
Citizen and Authorities
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Der leere Schreibtisch symbolisiert Macht, Recht, Kontrolle, Bedrohung, Strafe – den Amtsleiter. Er erwartet Meldung. Sich gegenüber lässt er vier Jugendliche wartend in einer Schlange antreten, der hinterste noch groß und stattlich, nach vorne werden die Körper immer kleiner. Sie sind angsterfüllt, deshalb auch aggressiv, erwartet sie Vorwürfe, Strafe?
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Ihr Leben, ihr Körper ist voll mit Rissen und Schrunden, die auf Schwächen und Fehler, auf Not hindeuten. Kaputte Menschen, die Hilfe suchen – werden sie sie finden? Die Frage bleibt offen, aber das Kleinerwerden der Figuren gibt hier Hinweise.
Ton ist ein ideales Material der Spurensicherung. Jeder „Eindruck“ bleibt erhalten und kann durch Brand gefestigt werden.
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