There Is No Growth Without Debt

Ceramics, 2020-2022
 

Titled "There is no growth without debt", Linda Luse’s hand-painted ceramic plates trace the circuitry of contemporary capitalism through humble images: rows of sugar beets, grids of corn, endless lanes of trucks, silhouettes stitched from advertisements. Each plate treats the economy as pattern—repetition, accumulation, and wear—while the clay retains its own resistance: edges chipped, surfaces scored, glazes catching light like warning signs. Agriculture, logistics, and marketing align on a single plane, compressing distance between field, road, and storefront. Luse’s vocabulary is deliberately familiar; these are images we pass daily without reading. On clay, they slow down. Debt becomes not only a financial instrument but a material pressure: the rhythm of seasons, the weight of transport, the persistence of promotion. The plates ask how ethics and economics might meet—whether attention itself can be a form of accountability—and how the traces of production mark both land and habit.