Carl Richard Soderstrom

Our Story:Carl Richard Soderstrom

Pressrelease Carl Richard Söderström
Carl Richard Söderström is located in Sweden and has his studio in an old factory in the center of Stockholm.
He is a well established artist and craftsman in his home country and reacent years he has also shown his work in London, South Korea and in Paris, France.
Before he graduated from Konstfack; College of arts craft and design in Stockholm, Carl Richard studied painting and the art of glassblowing at Orrrefors.
He also work as a designer and has made tableware designs for companies such as Design House Stockholm, Crate & Barrel in the US and Askgul in Japan.
His expression used to be very minimalistic in search of the absolute perfekt form and expression. Finding himself constantly traped in corners and forced to forced to back out in order to find new irections, and then start all over again, he decided five years ago to let go of any ambiton of perfektness and spendt two years in his studio breaking boundaries and exploring the limits of ceramic as a material.

He let himselfe be inspired by his traveles in Indonesia where he’s been fachinated by how fast nature takes over abandoned places created by man but that no longer serve any pourpos. Buildings and sculptures decayed and covered by vegetation.

Carl Richard works in a blackfired spanish clay that he fires in 1260 oC . Hes interested in the clays raw expression when fired without glaze and examens how the blueish black tone of the clay changes whith different structures.

Other objects are decorated several times with slip and glazes in various whites, fired 5- 6 times in search for a transparent almost 3 dimensionell expression on the surface of he objects.
His work is carachterized by objects in handbuilt shapes transformed in to new shapes and with layers of layers of structures that forms patterns. He works fast and intuitively but submits to the slow pace of the material wich gives a certain rest and time for reflection.
The objects are subordinated to the working process and every finished object is the inspiration to the next.

The precens of the hand is important. the objects are built in classic teqnicues. Details are rolled, kneaded or moulded directly in the hands and the foldes and angels of the hand creates clear prints in the clay and becomes a random decor on the surface.

Chanse, coincidences and sudden whimps is what brings Carl Richards artistry forward.
He scetches directly in the material assuming that theres no rights or wrongs, nothin ugly nor beutiful.
He continue working the objects until they are interesting enough to stand on there own.

The exploration of ceramic as a material is more intriguing than the actual objekt. He challanges the clay and it challanges him right back. The expression is synonymous with the production process, almost as if the objects choose their own shape and expression.
Carl Richard balance maximal expression whith minimal means. He pushes boundaries in order to develope his expression further.

In his current exhibition at Gallerie NEC in Paris , Carl Richard Söderström shows objects where it is as if force of nature taken over objects made by man; distorting, transforming and patinating them whith total lack of aesthetic values. A unsentimentel roughness but whit the sensitivity that occurs when something allows to develope in its own pace.

”With acute technical skill, the Swedish sculptor Carl Richard Söderström thwarts the slowness and inertia of clay to imprint sensations. For his first exhibition in France, the artist expresses the power of colonization of vegetation on buildings or sculptures. Between stone and life, the balance of power is embodied exuberantly. With excitement, details in laminate, moulded and shaped directly by hand in a setting that is voluble and never seem to stop multiplying. From January 19 until March 3, 2012.”
(from webzine lifestyle Mag online)