Out of Delft/Out of China

Aylieff’s residency at the Royal Delft Factory in the Netherlands led to two major outcomes: an exhibition at the Factory Museum and a solo show at Galerie Terra Delft, the city’s premier contemporary ceramics gallery. The residency at Royal Delft during December 2010 provided Aylieff with the opportunity to use the factory’s archive and object collections to research the development of Delft Blue and White painting and the traditional imagery used on delftware produced by the company. This research informed new surface-pattern designs developed by Aylieff, which made use of a range of techniques available at the factory that were new to her experience. Her contemporary, personal response to the traditional imagery of Delft ceramics led to the creation of a diverse range of decorated pieces for the exhibitions and an edition of artist’s design stoneware plates produced by the factory and sold under the Royal Delft label. Aylieff’s solo exhibition at Galerie Terra Delft in 2011 presented the results of the Royal Delft residency alongside work produced during a residency at Jingdezhen. The show explored the connections between the two bodies of work and the relevance and importance to the artist of a cross-cultural experience in conceiving and making ceramics. These exhibitions were described in the exhibition catalogue Brandpunt Terra (2011), and in Crafts Magazine (2011) and Klei Keramisch (2011). The residency and both exhibitions formed a significant event within the citywide ‘Delft Ceramics Festival’ (‘Brandpunt Terra’) and helped stimulate contact between the twinned cities of Delft and Jingdezhen. A professional video was commissioned by Galerie Terra to archive the museum exhibition experience. Exposure of the work in the UK was through a COLLECT satellite exhibition, ‘Terra in China – China in Terra’ (London, 2013). Images of Aylieff’s work were used for the private view invitation