Biography

Maria Primolan

Architect and Sculptor
She creates mainly wooden, bronze or terracotta sculptures
Place: Turin, Italy
Maria Primolan was born in 1971 in Turin; she first attended Vittorio Veneto Art School in the Piedmontese state capital, then she graduated in Architecture at Polytechnic of Turin.
Portraits sculptures
In 2016-2017 she startes several works inspired to the great musician and artist David Bowie, who died in January 2016, committing herself to the lime wood sculpture “The Angel’s Gift”. In 2017 Maria creates“Bowie Bust of Beckenham-Bromley”, lime wooden bust dedicated to David Bowie entitled “Goodbye Mr Bowie”, exposed at the Library of Beckenham, Borough of Bromley, London. In 2018 she ends two bust of terracotta dedicated to David Bowie inspired to Scary Monsters Record images, and Space Oddity Cover Record.

In 2018-2023 she created many sculptures portrait dedicated to David Bowie made of clay and raku ceramic. Three 3D wall panel made of painted ceramic inspired by David Bowie’s cover album. In 2020 she started collaboration with BowieGallery.com. In 2019-2023 she created Bruce Springsteen,  Freddie Mercury, Harry Styles, Prince and George Michael sculpture portraits.

 

Other artworks

Up to 2010 she is mainly involved in furniture design, drawing and producing unique pieces of furniture and artistic handicraft creating many wooden everyday things.
Since 2010 she has gone back to wooden sculpting.
In 2011 she sculpts the bust of Camillo Benso Count of Cavour for the 150th anniversary of the Unification of Italy. For this sculpture she used a special technique gluing together overlapped boards, each of different thickness and different extract – walnut, durmast, cherry wood; once built the block, it was than sculpted using the traditional tools for wood carving.
Between 2011 and 2012 she creates a panel carving lime wood representing “Supper at Emmaus” for the altar of the church of Trana (Turin). The work is done gluing together many boards and obtaining then a parallelepiped sculpted in high relief.
In 2012 she creates bronze tiles on the main door of Mary’s Nativity Church in Trana representing eight Virgin Mary’s privileges.
In 2015 she creates – together with Gregorio Balestra – the “Formella del Pellegrino” (the Tile of the Pilgrim) for Museo della Sindone (Museum of the Holy Shroud) to celebrate the exhibition of the Holy Shroud; she also creates the wooden carved boxes used for the moving of the Holy Shroud’s full copy.
In 2016-2017 she startes several works inspired to the great musician and artist David Bowie, who died in January 2016, committing herself to the lime wood sculpture “The Angel’s Gift”.
In 2017 she realizes – together with Gregorio Balestra – the wooden monument “La Fonte del Latte” (The Well of Milk) at Municipio di Usseglio (Town Hall of Usseglio – Turin).

  • RAKU PROCESS

    Description of the process to create a raku sculpture. The photos don't show the same sculpture, but some sculptures to explain all the phases.

RAKU PROCESS

Realization of the sculpture

At the first
I made the sculpture made of white clay
It follows the drying and the first fire.

In Raku any clay that copes with the firing technique must be able to
withstand heat shock without warping, distorting or cracking. The clay needs to
have particles in it to allow water to escape quickly so calcinated China clay
or clay with temper (grog, flint or shell) added to it, is successful. This
clay occurred naturally in Japan.

The most porcelains and white
stoneware clay bodies are unsuitable for the Western Raku process unless some
material is added to deal with thermal shock, like quartz.

RAKU PROCESS

Coloration

After the first fire  I color lips and eyes with colored pigments
for ceramic.

I put the sculpture in the
white glaze and I start to paint the hair with oxide. For the hair I use prepared
glazes with oxides of cooper, iron and others, that give the sculptures
splendid colors and metallic effects. Raku glazes mature at a much lower temperature.
Western Raku potters rarely use lead as a glaze ingredient, due to its toxicity.

RAKU PROCESS

Preparation of the kiln

I prepare the sculpture in the
kiln. There are many kind of kiln and the results of the work depends also on
this. This kiln is out door and I can open it completely at the end of firing
to take the glowing pieces.

RAKU PROCESS

Ignition of the kiln

This is a gas kiln. The glaze
firing time for Raku is about an hour. Now I can close the kiln and I can turn
on the gas and light the burner.

RAKU PROCESS

Reduction preparation

At the first everything goes
slowly and while the sculpture is in the kiln I can prepare the reduction
chamber

The use of a reduction chamber at the end of the
Raku firing was introduced by the American potter Paul Soldner in the 1960s, in
order to compensate for the difference in atmosphere between wood-fired
Japanese Raku kilns and gas-fired American kilns. Typically, pieces are placed
in masses of combustible material like straw, sawdust, or newspaper, leaves,  in order to provide a
reducing atmosphere for the glaze.

RAKU PROCESS

Opening kiln – extraction of the sculpture

At the 985° degrees centigrade
the glaze is mature, the sculptures appear orange and red colors. We can turn
off the gas and we can open the kiln. I prepare myself to take the piece with
the pliers.

When we open the kiln it is
always very exciting!

The sculpture must be quickly
placed in the reduction chamber. The combustible material burn and I cover
quickly the piece.

RAKU PROCESS

Riduzione – Reduction phase

The burning of organic material produces the
distinctive soot coloring of Raku.

Sometime my sculptures in this
phase have broken for the strong thermal shock!

My pieces have glazed and fired using the
Western Raku technique.

 

The results offer a myriad of unique
iridescent glazes, crackling, and black-soot dyed surfaces.

The times in the reduction
chamber varies from a few minutes to a 20 or 30 minutes, this influences the
colors.

Opening the reduction chamber: This phase is
exciting, too, because I look forward to see 
how the sculptures appear

RAKU PROCESS

Scultura finita – Finished sculpture

I checked out the sculpture from the reduction
chamber and I can start to clean it

Here the Raku Sculpture
finished!