Park Forest

Melchart’s use of process and gestural ‘acts’ open interpretations into the fabric and structural beauty of a material, the artist often seeking a revelatory moment of chance discovery which — on subsequent reflection — can uncover truths about the person as well as the act and the art. “Park Forest” is a piece formed from action often returned to by Melchart; a slab of stoneware heated until hidden weaknesses crack under stress, then decorated or refurnished based upon them. Melchart posits that the resulting set of hairline fractures — and therefore the resubmitted form — is a result of chance and yet also not, the possibility of a fault’s fruition having always been embedded in the clay at an elemental level, set to wait for the artist’s .