In Folly, Paul Maseyk returns to a mode of making central to his artistic identity: the large, semi‑autobiographical vessel. Founded in ancient Greek forms and decorative traditions, these monumental works mark a kind of homecoming. Their necks and bases carry dense frieze‑work built line by line through slip‑trailing and brushwork, while their bodies unfold into sprawling narratives drawn from fragments of Maseyk’s life, imagination, and visual memory.
This return is not nostalgic but deliberately demanding—an artistic and physical test after years spent on other projects. Recent work has seen Maseyk range widely, from functional tableware to the ambitious multi‑venue project Jugs in New Zealand Painting. The slow, exacting rhythm of his Greek inspired vessels had been paused, their demands set aside. Re‑entering this practice required recalibration: of pace, patience, and the creative stamina these works insist upon.
