The value of these objects to me is in their
there-ness, their stillness and their silence.
— Kevin Lincoln

Melbourne artist Kevin Lincoln discovered his passion for Asian ceramics in 1986 in the British Museum. Since 2006 he has himself been a collector of Japanese tea bowls.

In Rengetsu he responds to one such bowl from the Gallery’s collection, translating his love of pottery into the medium he knows best: oil on canvas.

The bowl was made by Otagaki Rengetsu (1791–1875), a Japanese Buddhist nun and artist renowned for her poetry,pottery and calligraphy. It appears here beside tools and materials of Lincoln’s own trade: a palette knife and tube
of paint. But the spirit of Lincoln’s homage lies not just in the subject but the style of his painting.

The two-part painting with its central division suggests a Japanese folding screen, while the muted colours echo the austere beauty encountered in chanoyu, the Japanese tea ceremony.

Placing Rengetsu’s bowl in this open field of colour, Lincoln reminds us of the power of small handmade objects to energise the spaces around them.