Charles KRAFFT

View in collection Born in Seattle, USA, he studied English at junior college for one year before dropping out and moving to San Francisco in 1967. He became part of the alternative scene and did psychedelic light shows for rock concerts. For a number of years he worked as a painter making illusionist paintings which sold well. He lived a rural self sufficient lifestyle for the next eleven years before moving back to the city. He started to study china painting at the North West China Painters Guild in 1992, and made work in the Delft blue and white ceramics tradition. He initially made a tile featuring his hero, Von Dutch an American motorcyclist, with whom he established a friendship. He then created a series of china plates featuring socio-political disasters called Disasterware, with the logo designed by Von Dutch. In 1995, he travelled to the former Yugoslavia with the Slovenian rock band Laibach. The experience of living in a war zone inspired him to make a series of weaponry in Delft, having now learned slip casting techniques. The Porcelain War Museum Project had its debut at the Republic of Slovenia Ministry of Defence headquarters in Ljubljana in 2000, and has been exhibited internationally since. In 1999, Krafft embarked on a new product-a reinvention of Josiah Spode's technique for making bone china, but this time using human bones, creating a product he calls SPONE. He uses the cremated remains of the deceased (with permission and by request) to make individual commemorative ceramic pieces.

Details

• Dates: b.1949