We Are Ocean

Open until 4 Oct at The Waiting Room Gallery in Granton Station,  'We Are Ocean'  is a joint exhibition by Alison Grant and Tokes Sharif that engages in a dialogue about our relationship with the ecosystems that sustain us, to create space for contemplation and connection.

Reflections and echoes permeate Alison Grant’s work, of land and sea, winter and spring, the human and non-human, of the material earth on which we live and the cultural world in which we dwell, seeming binaries which resolve themselves in a dynamic planetary system whose ceaseless motion is driven by the surge and churn of the seas, becoming there like the systole, diastole of that oceanic flow.

Tokes Sharif also turns to the oceans for inspiration, his pots following the forms of frond and stipe and calcareous growth until, like amphorae salvaged from ancient shipwrecks, they seem barnacled over by time, as though they already anticipate their own sea-change. Sharif incorporates oystershells directly into his work and experiments with seaweed ash glazes, and with restricted firing techniques which, while they relinquish a degree of control over the finish and frustrate efforts at flawless execution, do allow the fullest possible expression to the mineral content of the clay.