Bouke de Vries, Limburgh, 2023. A late 17th century Famille Verte porcelain plate within a perspex box. H.36.8 W.36.8 D.7.6 cm. ADRIAN SASSOON at TEFAF 2024. © 2024 TEFAF.

Provenance: From the artist's studio.

Using his skills as a restorer his ‘exploded’ artworks reclaim broken pots after their accidental trauma. He has called it ‘the beauty of destruction’. Instead of reconstructing them, he deconstructs them. Instead of hiding the evidence of this most dramatic episode in the life of a ceramic object, he emphasises their new status, instilling new virtues, new values, and moving their stories forward.
The spaces in between the fragments become an essential part of the structures and the objects sometimes take on a cubist quality. With some works the viewer may be confused as to where the original makers of the piece stop and where the artist begins, making the work biographical and giving it new currency.
The plate used in this work is a genuine late 17th century Famille Verte porcelain plate suspended within a perspex box.