Christine Thacker

BRONWYN LLOYD

While chatting with Richard Fahey at his home recently, my eye was snared by a terracotta object sitting on a small table on the opposite side of the living room. The eyes of the male head were barely visible at a distance, his neutral expression inscrutable, but what shouted across the room at me were the painted features on the face, picked out in bright matt colours: a yellow and a purple eyebrow, sky-blue lips, one pink ear, one green ear, streaky blue textured hair, and a flaming orange neck.

I recognised the piece as the work of Christine Thacker, selected by Emma Bugden as a finalist in the 2017 Portage Ceramic Awards at Te Uru Waitakere Contemporary Gallery. When I first encountered the object in the award exhibition I thought how appropriate its title was. Called Synaesthesia, the coloured features on the head, almost audible in their brightness, made me think about the curious perceptual disorder where the senses are jumbled, and people can see sound, hear colour, or taste shapes.

‘After I saw it,’ Fahey said mysteriously as we looked across at the object, ‘I