This exhibition invites you to look at contemporary terracotta sculpture by dis-engaging the notion of tradition or the expectation of a long-established practice. If there is tradition transmitted through the hands of Herod Duran, they take the form of a potter’s wheel and a set of tools handed down by his father and grandfather. These implements represent the aspirations of a generation of potters from the locality of Barangay Daro, Dumaguete City. Memories of Daro’s infamous Claytown area, where the earth used to be plowable, connect the artist to a bustling trade in the 1980’s. This setting has fixed the mindset of locals about terracotta.
While Duran was trained to craft a myriad of objects in his childhood, so has the public been taught to value bricks, pots and vases solely for their function.
Ingenuity in this new series of work comes from dodging the nostalgia of tradition. Upturned pots become iconic portraits. Interlocked cups resemble a disengaged hornet’s nest. Brick slabs impersonate a sea wave wall. Sight of a new aesthetic appears in a surge of tentacles installed as the exhibition’s showpiece.
Dismembered protrusions of a cephalopod, unlike the soft unsegmented body it images, reveal the nature of the craft–a constant mediation between the pliability of clay and the transformative power of fire. From culled earth to allusions of totem-like structures, Duran modifies his way through tradition by moving in a flexible and open-ended manner. One can imagine new functions for Duran’s new work: a wall cladding, a table centerpiece, or symbols of protection as tradition in similar cultures would have them.
By Sandra Palomar
Hemrod Duran (b. 1980) is a Dumaguete-based terracotta artist who hails from a family of potters from Daro. He received early training from his father and fondly remembers growing up in the brick-business his grandfather built. He enhanced his skills in pottery making and clay research while working with Japanese volunteers invited by the Department of Science and Technology (2007). Duran is a constant resource person for pottery workshops with local communities and the DOST. He has exhibited in group shows in Negros Island and Manila since 2003. This is his first solo show.
