Piet Eppinga’s work is phenomenal. As we walked into the Werby Gallery, we were surprised to hear him describing each individual piece of art. Most artist usually sit outside of the class and wait for students to ask rather than give an in depth tour. His tour and passion for his work actually made us more interested to learn. His art is unique because each piece has a story with different representations. For example the first piece he went over with us was family relations. Every part of his work has a sense of significance , even from the pot on the head to the table top on the ground. For example, the table top is fifty years old and in order to hold up a piece that weighs roughly 650 pounds, he needed to apply a layer of plywood for support. As for the piece, one can see the two faces of two individuals being messhed together. They appear to look the same, however, there is a large wedge which separates the width of the heads. this is representative of the different roles a father has in comparison to the mother. The father and the mother also reside on what appears to be a mesh of clay with white stones. This shows how parents lie above the children on a hierarchy but also need them for support.
The next piece is also very real. His purpose of this piece was to paint a picture of the difficulties a woman has by being a mother. For example, she has very large breast which are to show that by having children they can be both a blessing and a pain. The skirt she is wearing has images of flowers which appear damaged to show that nothing stays good in life and eventually everything will get worn out. She can be looked at as a metaphor for both men and women. The pot on her head represents the burden she carries of losing her friends and family over the course of her life.
This next piece is the artist favorite, it is of a petite woman with curves to represent beauty. The woman is considered to be a fertility figure, similar to what is the fertility figure of the 21st century. She also has a phallic pot on her head to add to the feeling of perfection. There is a small white rock inside of her, similar to wear a uterus would be located. Its the center of her universer and is to remind us that life should focus on all paternity. the whole piece is made of clay and rust, and in order to add color to the pot, it has a splash of metal.
As we move on to the next piece, I cannot hold back my awe struck face. The pieces are so large and I could only imagine the difficulties each piece had to have been. As we are standing in front of two large breast, surrounded by three large Xs, we are informed that we are staring at the Queen. The Xs represent power, whease the globe attached to her is to show that she rules over land and is full of wealth. every piece has a purpose, even down to the four markings on her back, which represent the weeks of the lunar month.
The next piece I though was very interesting, alot of the artist work is based on the roles of women in our society, however he tried to tackle the complications of being a father. He says fathers and sons usually arent very close, its considered to be a vicouse cycle because father after father’s cant figure out how to fix the connection. The image may be hard to decipher but it is meant to be a small boy leaned against his father for support. The artist closed the gap that is typically found between fathers and sons.
I think in order to get more of a feeling for this mans work, please visit his website at Pietspottery.com!
jacobmacmaster 