NATALIE ROSIN

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NATALIE ROSIN

ARTIST

Sydney, NSW, Australia

I’m obsessed with scaled down worlds. Dolls houses, gingerbread houses, miniature art, tiny landscapes in a handbag mirror, micro gardens in a match box, a 50cm tall Parisian building furnished like it would have been in the 18th century, a rugged Paris block… I collect images of it all in an Instagram archive folder and a secret Pinterest board. I fantasise about making a film involving lenses looking like the barrel of a gun which able them to enter the tiniest of spaces. Imagine when I discovered the cities of clay Natalie Rosin creates… Read More

Photos I took that day and film grabs…

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Natalie has loved art since she was a child. She ended up studying a Master of Architecture at the UNSW Art and Design School (ex COFA) during which she chose a ceramics elective and absolutely loved it. She slowly merged the two techniques exploring our human habitations with the freedom and constraints of clay.

Today, she shapes dwellings from the ancestral adobe house to the brutalist apartment block. Clay allows an interpretation but not too literal. Natalie doesn’t sketch, she explores the limits and possibilities of the medium in her hands as she shapes it.

I filmed her process, slowly, during a day at her studio in Botany (Sydney). It was mesmerising. It made me want to drop my camera and sit beside her, try it out myself. Roll clay like pastry, cut it perfectly straight, assemble the pieces, glue with water, and feel the piece take its homely shape under my fingers. I imagine creating mini clay furniture… I was only dreaming and I hope you do to, when you watch the film above and read about Natalie’s process in the interview below.

Connect with Natalie

@natrosin | natalie-rosin.com

INTERVIEW

Sydney for both.
English only. I am trying to learn German with Duolingo on my phone on and off in my spare time. It was going great at first but then I started struggling with remembering the gender of different nouns...
I create ceramic sculptures inspired by architectural forms and structures.
I studied a Bachelor of Architectural Studies and then a Masters of Architecture with a ceramic elective, both at the University of New South Wales in Sydney.
I then studied Intaglio Etching, Drawing & Design, and Contemporary Ceramics College of Fine Arts UNSW.
I seriously can't explain it. I had never done ceramics before, except for when I was six years old or something.
I went on exchange to Cornell University upstate New York for my final semester of undergraduate and I had a lot of fun. I did a sculpture installation course, but nothing ceramics. It was all just mixed media. I came back to start my master's and I was just like, I want to do ceramics, I can't explain it.
I start by testing out what works structurally, testing out physics. I just really like the idea of a ceramic architectural tower that looks as though it's about to fall down, kind of breaking, pushing the limit.
I start making these sculptures by just kneading the clay, conditioning it, putting it through a slab roller, so it becomes a nice and flat. From there, I cut out pieces, then start testing with my hands to see what works by stacking elements together.
The next stage is to just let it dry really, really slowly. Because these pieces have so many joints, there're so many opportunities for cracks to form.
When you're throwing a bowl, it's just one piece, when you think about it, it's just as big round bowl, but with what I'm making, it has 50 different joints. I wrap it up for a week and just let all the clay get to the same humidity content. When that happens, I let the plastic go away, and then it dries all to the same rate for about a week.
The next stage is to fire it to 1000 degrees Celsius. Then I'll glaze it and fire again to 1250 degrees Celsius.
My architectural inspiration comes from both examples I have physically seen in person or through images, as well as from my own concepts and ideas. For instance, I enjoy sculpting brutalist architecture because of their interesting forms in addition to how well concrete translates to the clay medium. In these instances, I try and really study the building, aiming to include enough features for the sculpture to be recognisable but not too representational. On the other hand, I also enjoy being spontaneous and forming pieces without sketching or planning things out, I call this sketching with clay.
My architecture background aims to be precise to the millimetre, while my experience with clay is well aware that this is a lost cause. I like to embrace the unpredictable properties of clay in my sculptural works, while at the same time try to achieve at least a small sense of control over the final outcome by understanding how clay can develop and move during the different firing and drying stages of the process.
When first introduced to clay I was perhaps a bit ambitious, not fully understanding the characteristics of the medium. And then there were some failures which made me more cautious, slowly understanding the way clay moves and warps and shrinks. Now I like to think I’m growing more ambitious again, trying to test the limits of this earthy material.
Most creative people may indicate they always knew this life path. This is not the case for me. When I was in school I enjoyed maths and played the violin. While I studied art in the last year of high school I didn't consider it a career. I chose to study architecture at university and picked up a few different art electives along the way at university. I chose a drawing course, intaglio, sculpture and also an introduction to ceramics. Ceramics was the one that stuck, I kept practising and learning about working with clay alongside my studies in my free time and haven't stopped since.
I used to enjoy wheel-throwing ceramic vessels on the pottery wheel, very therapeutic
I love Vietnamese food!
I recently read A little life by Hanya Yanagihara
Fargo
Killers of the Flower Moon
I'm more into listening to true crime podcasts these days.
I really love anything Jenny Orchard creates.
Antoni Gaudí was an architect, artist and sculptor, his works are out of this world in my mind.
Where I already live, Sydney!