Patrick Bergsma

Expanding China Series

In the expanding China series, I picked up my fascination for chinaware again. Our human culture has a long history making and decorating ceramics and porcelain. The shiny surface of it is a perfect contrast with the natural elements in my work. I developed my own techniques to make bonsai trees and flowers using coconut fibre, polymers, kaolin and quarts. I combine the ancient Asian arts of Ikebana, bonsai, and penjing with antique porcelain. In Holland there is a long tradition of influence by the East. What we call typically Dutch like Delft blue was originally an attempt to imitate the very popular porcelain imported from China and Japan. In this series I often use these 17th century “imitations", combined with the natural elements like bonsai and ikebana. In japan there is a tradition to repair broken porcelain with golden glue called kintsugi. According to the philosophy it treats breakage and repair as part of the history of an object, rather than something to disguise. In these works, it is as if the natural elements reshape these old cultural remains from our civilization.