Big Head / Repeated Form
I often find myself returning to the same forms over time. One of these is a large ceramic head.
The large head grew out of an earlier series of smaller porcelain heads, developed through repeated variations of a single form. After working with it extensively, I wanted to experience the same process on a larger scale. I made a model and produced a mould. That’s how this form appeared.
Since then, I have kept working with it. Different approaches, materials, and series have grown out of it, but the form itself remains the same starting point.
It is a very simple and familiar structure, almost too obvious. A human head is something overused, almost exhausted. At times, it feels as if everything that could be done with it has already been done.
At the same time, the form continues to offer possibilities. Each return brings a shift. The process remains open.
The form is not a subject in itself, but a structure I return to in order to work through recurring questions. Similar themes reappear: ambiguity, instability, the difficulty of fixing a single identity. They shift each time, but never fully disappear.
Within this structure, different directions appear. Sometimes something begins to grow over the surface, as if another presence is entering and inhabiting it. In other cases, the form is cut, reassembled, or structurally altered. These variations have developed into separate series, but here they remain secondary.
The form itself carries certain characteristics that I didn’t fully plan. It is built from a mould with three parts, leaving visible seams that often remain in the final work. Over time, these seams began to function almost like scars — something that was initially a flaw but became part of the form’s language.
The face is different from what I usually make. It is longer, narrower, slightly uneven. It feels less like a neutral structure and more like a specific presence.
Working at this scale (around 40 cm and larger) changes the way I approach it. The form becomes more physical, more resistant, and each intervention feels more decisive.
This is not entirely unique to this form. I sometimes return to other shapes as well, even after long breaks, and find myself looking at them differently.
At times, I question this return: whether it comes from exhaustion, from the need to hold on to something familiar. At the same time, the form still offers possibilities that don’t feel fully explored.
For now, it remains an ongoing process, something I continue to come back to without a clear endpoint.
