‘An echo imprinted’ was exhibited at Wysing Arts Centre 18 October to 5 December 2021 as part of the Test Space exhibition strand, which provides a public platform for Wysing’s studio artists to test out new ideas and directions.

Bringing together work in ceramics and sound, with results from experiments in photogrammetry software, ‘An echo imprinted’ reflects on the cave as a point of origin, both culturally and spiritually.

Drawing on the physical and cyclical processes in ceramics, the installation utilises artefacts and sounds of the Wysing ceramics studio within the work, emphasising the traces of past actions that are inherent to the genesis and production of art objects. Used and worn Anagama (“cave kiln”) shelves, bearing the marks and residue of past firings frame the sculptural works, the heavy rectangular forms like tablets or tombstones. The ceramic objects within the installation also draw upon geologic and natural forms, the tactile riveted and pock marked surfaces creating wells and recesses for the pooling and crystallisation of glazes, further inferring a sense of aggregation, flux and metamorphosis.
Accompanying the installation is a sound work that gradually layers and abstracts found audio and field recordings captured over the course of 2021 to create a meditative soundscape, incorporating a variety of discovered sounds including chimes, birdsong, bells, the potter’s wheel and the voice of Foster-Jones’ daughter Olwen to capture a sense of the transcendental.

The installation draws upon Foster-Jones’ recent experiences of becoming a father himself and the loss of his own father, to contemplate how we remember, commemorate, and how fleeting memories can leave an indelible mark, or become abstracted in time.