Artwork Description
I keep coming back to the extraordinary amount of detail in this piece. Jo Roets has worked the clay into five narrow bands, each with its own surface pattern. One is covered in fine vertical grooves, another is punctured with little oval openings, while the lowest edge looks almost like a piece of delicate lace.
There's something about the arrangement that reminds me of a geological cross-section, where layers of sediment reveal the passage of time. You could almost imagine these fragments having been carefully excavated and laid out for study.
Yet the closer you look, the less certain you become about what you're seeing. Are these traces of ancient rock, fossilised plant matter, or simply the artist's wonderful ability to transform an ordinary material into something unexpected?
I think that's part of the pleasure of Conduit #2. You don't need to know exactly what inspired every mark to enjoy looking at it. The natural stone clay has been left beautifully pale, allowing the texture and the small shadows within each opening to do all the work.
