Saly Noémi (szerk.): Gorka Lívia keramikusművész (Budapest, 2010)
Kollin András: Bibliográfia
. J. "divisibility" or "indivisibility", a world in which she herself lives. This expression is both a handhold and a defence, a "crutch" needed to achieve self-realisation, which in its judgement also makes one detached and places the divisible or indivisible nature of the universe above the ordinary and the general approach which characterises the attitude of the Central Europe of the era. Second Period: moving towards sculpture (1 965-1 973) Lívia Gorka asked the greatest living sculptor of the period, a friend of her father and the man she had jointly appeared with at her great debut in Linz, to write the foreword to the catalogue of her exhibitions held in Veszprém and Keszthely in 1965. Miklós Borsos had much to say in appreciation of the works of the young artist. He viewed them not as ornaments or decorative art, but similarly to H. Lange, the art writer and critic, he placed them within the world of modern art. He emphasised that in the ceramic works of Lívia Gorka "we come face to face with the traditional approach to nature of a culture, many millennia old”, an approach which "penetrates to the very depths of nature, and in doing so creates symbols for humanity". He knew and inaugurated the sculptor with his statement "the depth is in their material, their dramatic nature". He encouraged the young artist with his words and comments, almost as a master would, recognising in her work the path of and possibilities for development. "They may create a transition in the meeting and melting together of the geometric, the architectonic and the organic, the garden of nature. Their size may be increased in architecture, and increased they should be, a task which still awaits the artist. On the basis of her works and successes thus far, she must necessarily cultivate and achieve her life's work, for her own enrichment and that of Hungarian art.”32 In the mid-sixties Lívia Gorka acquired a large, gas kiln from Switzerland, opening up new opportunities for her experiments with materials and glazes. ("I must admit, this leap to a different technical level has left me dizzy.")33 Her ceramics changed significantly. She markedly distanced herself from her previous periods. From hereon only she herself would combine her basic materials. She also mixed the chamot, of varying granule size and colour, to the clay compound herself as an additive. She distinctly described the material used for her work as chamot clay.34 She viewed firing at temperatures of 1200-1500°C as the technical basis of her work. Her experiments with metallic glazes with melting points of similarly high temperatures to that of clay, and bits of metal burned into the clay itself, were already producing serious results. She well knew that even small, 20-30°C differences in temperature produced varying colour and surface effects. And although she herself compared firing to the expectancy of giving birth,35 viewing her works we can be pretty sure that she could calculate the effect to a great degree of certainty as well as what final surface colour composition would result if, after a single firing she took her chamot reliefs and statues and covered them in an oxide glaze with a lower melting point, before firing them once again. Using a unique technical process - dipping or "bathing" the fired ceramic object in potassium nitrate, better known as saltpetre - her surfaces achieved a distinctive, matt finish. This surface treatment made her ceramics reminiscent of a different material - most obviously the rocks and stone found in nature [Cat.: 83, 87-89]. She also mixed, kneaded together the various glazes (smooth Norwegian feldspar, granular German quartz, Czech Kaolin and other materials acquired from various mines). Her ceramics increasingly had the effect of being made of a material with a new form of structure. "I like the colour of iron and copper, and the glazes 1 concoct myself - not the ones I get ready made. I mix oxides with the clay glaze in various proportions and experiment with this using several objects and for a long period, until for example the neighbouring materials and colours no longer mix contrary to my wishes. For this reason I design and plan my works in advance, I don't like random results..."36 Instead of the hardness of lustrous glaze, the layer of matt-finished 40
