Fernando Casasempere

After studying both ceramics and sculpture in Barcelona, Casasempere returned to his birthplace, Santiago, where he consolidated his studies by working as a ceramics sculptor. After exhibiting extensively, both in Chile and North America, his work began to feature in exhibitions overseas. He then moved to London in 1997, bringing with him over twelve tonnes of his own mixtures of clay, a feat confirming his long-standing obsession with identity and his deep-seated concern for the environment. The Chilean landscape and Pre-Colombian background of the Latin world are ever present in his sculptures and his most recent works combine these influences with the cityscapes and inspirations that London has offered him.

His seven-metre long installation for the New Art Centre, ‘Back to the Earth’, 2005, examines the artist’s interest in ecology and geology and consists of individual ceramic elements that jut out of the earth, exposing its inner core. These stoneware and porcelain forms can be reconfigured for a different site.

Casasempere’s ceramic forms are often inspired by the effects of machines and mass production on the environment and modern society. His exhibition at Roche Court in 2011, Bricks and Mortar, comprised a series of large works sited in the Walled Garden, laying on the grass and beneath trees, they appeared like discarded waste products from an unknown industrial process.

In 2012, Fernando Casasempere created a monumental field of ceramic and steel flowers in the courtyard of Somerset House, called ‘Out of Sync’, this extraordinary work has now