Ceramic Art and Perception-- Wall Paper Domesticity Deconstructed

Wall-Paper is an instillation created by Aurora Hughes Villa where she creates medallions that are decorated with wall paper patterns, portraits of women, floor plans, and body parts. She uses these illustrations as a metaphor for women's lives. They capture fleeting moments in restricted lives of years gone by. The textures and patterns from a wide range of wallpaper designs motifs, anchor the portraits to their domestic past. To create these portraits and patterns Villa uses underglazes and slips squeegeed through silkscreens onto the clay surfaces. She also carved, hand painted, and stenciled images.

When Villa displayed these medallions all together they create a vibrant, three- dimensional wallpaper stretched across the length of one wall. Adjacent to the medallions are yellow panels of wallpaper fragments. Using real wallpaper along with the ceramic wallpaper is a powerful conduit back to the simpler times that presented challenges to women's lives.