John Bauer and Sonwabiso Ngcai in front of facade 111 Loop Street Gallery tiled with Bauer’s winning matchbox tiles
Cape Town - One of South Africa’s most prolific and celebrated ceramic artists, John Bauer, has won the Premiere Award at the CSA Corobrik National Ceramics Biennial which this year coincided with CSA’s 50 year celebration.
His award comes one year after winning the Innibos National Craft Award.
This acknowledgement is a doff of the cap to Bauer’s neuro-diversity, which has led to his work being described as having “a unique aesthetic command” by this year’s award judge, Sonwabiso Ngcai, himself an award-winning ceramics Fine Arts lecturer at Nelson Mandela University.
Bauer is sharing his story to inspire others who face similar challenges not to feel shame at their inabilities.
“It is when we embrace the noble catastrophes that we find fertile ground for innovation and change,” he said.
For most of his childhood and adult life, Bauer experienced the shame of “being different”. He had struggled to complete high school. However, seven years ago at the age of 37, Bauer was given the opportunity to take a battery of neurological tests with Dr Mark Tunbridge. These confirmed that Bauer has severe difficulty with aspects of memory, reading and switching from one task to another.
On the other hand, the results showed that he is particularly gifted with problem-solving, abstract thinking and visual patterns.
Bauer said: “My life blossomed. I was able to understand my difficulties without feeling ashamed and unpack my strengths, some of which were invisible to me until the test results shone a light on them.”
Bauer has dedicated his life to ceramic art and built himself a career.
At age 12 he enrolled in an adult’s class and by the time he was 30, his work was displayed in two national museums. He has won regional awards, and two national awards in the last two years. However, his success has not been without struggle – and may well be because of it.
Bauer’s borderline short-term memory combined with his inability to track tasks, means he lives in “the eternal now”. This has forced him to innovate new ceramic techniques.
“Because I can’ remember how I do what I do, I am constantly having to reinvent,” he said.
So while Bauer has a deep respect for tradition, he has been able to produce ceramics that consistently innovate and challenge this long-established, ancient art form.
Ngcai said of Bauer’s winning work that it “communicates and alludes to his ongoing experimentations and his involvement in finding new expressions of material which constitute depth of research”.
“My unusual neurology is a unique lens. It allows me to see differently,” said Bauer. He believes there are countless individuals in our community who hide with shame their inabilities.
He hopes his story will inspire them to instead hold their inabilities carefully to the light and explore the unique perspective it affords them.
“Winning this award has shown me that if no one understands your dream, keep translating. I hope to form a group of people who want to compare notes and innovate. There is strength in unity.”
Bauer’s award winning piece, Every Which Way, consists of two panels of porcelain matchbox tiles. Each tile captures a thumbnail of cultural objects, becoming a public people’s museums.
The panels can be viewed at Bauer’s studio at the Montebello Design Centre in Newlands.
Cape Times