Tamar Mason Sculptures

Tamar Mason uses clay, found objects and cattle horns as her chosen medium. Tamar Mason sculptures of clay figures and vessels are hand built, using the traditional coiling technique favoured by women in Africa for centuries. Wax, ochre's and oxides and spices such as turmeric are rubbed into kiln fired figures and vessels whilst others are pit fired. Some of the vessels are rendered "useless" by being drilled with holes and then studded with upholstery pins. In this way, clay is removed from its traditional domestic domain and used as a "fine art" material. Mason's work is technically and stylistically as powerful as the issues she deals with thematically.

The engraved cattle horns and skulls refer to cattle as a symbol of wealth and prestige in Africa. Tamar says: "By engraving the cattle skulls they become a form of meditating on contemporary issues such as Winnie Mandela's gardening shears, handbags, 'shut up and shop' and forming an identity out of diverse fragments. Street graffiti, co-opting of cultural artefacts and the contrasts between urban and rural experiences are the things that energise and excite me about working and living in this fabulous country,"

Tamar Mason's sculptures refer to the experience of being a woman in Southern Africa. "By virtue of my skin colour I am seen as an outsider to some of the rituals and traditions that often define one as being African. At the same time being a woman and a mother transcends issues of tribe and links one to a common experience of exhaustion, nappies, joy and guilt. By virtue of my gender I am an outsider to the experience of being a male in Africa but am an insider to many of the facets that define being a woman in Africa".

"Insider / Outsider" also refers to the experience of tribal initiation; being uninitiated I find myself fascinated and repelled by the concept of initiation. Female genital initiation appals me in its surgical ruthlessness and yet I find myself sympathetic to other aspects of initiation such as the way it binds age sets, sets perimeters for behaviour and celebrates aspects of the feminine and the masculine. The symbolism of the knife, cowrie shell, cattle horns and grass brooms link these issues in my work.

The clay vessel reflects women as a vessel for life; both nurture, both contain milk and blood and both are strong yet fragile. The use of upholstery pins in the vessels are both tactile and visually appealing. On the top, they are smooth and shiny. On the bottom they are sharp and can piece one.

Since 2004 Tamar Mason has focussed her ceramic work on creating figures that are between 70cm to 2m high. These figures are all female (the one male figure that she worked on was a failure) and further explore the issues that she worked with in her vessels.