A sculptor based in Tauranga Moana, Jaime hand builds in ceramic: delicate wall tapestries and mobiles, and dense, architectural forms that work as plinths, stools, shelves and tables, or simply as sculpture. “I am interested in the intersection of form and functionality,” she says. “I desire to take the familiar and create new forms, imbuing within these a connection to the natural environments of Aotearoa.”
She works intuitively. Rather than draw a form in advance, she has a sense of it and works it out through the making, often starting small at maquette scale before going large.
Her materials are local and her glazes are drawn from the ground, so each piece carries something of the place it was made. That way of working has carried her into Almost Touching, her first solo public gallery exhibition, at Toi Tauranga Art Gallery until 11 October.
For Paererewā, Jaime is drawn to a Pae that both stands out and settles in. She wants to sculpt one that will “both stand out and relax and sink into its surroundings, inviting its guests to immerse themselves into the environment. A space to connect and converse, or absorb and be still.”
The brief has stayed with her. “The brief of designing a Paererewā to last 1000 years has had me thinking about the necessity of humanity working together in all of our diversity,” she says.