Between December 2013 and March 2014 Contemporary Ceramics Centre is showing new makers to the gallery.
Kevin de Choisy
Kevin de
Choisy attended Harrow School of Art during the ‘Golden Years’ of the early
1970’s. After graduating he worked as a
production thrower and designer in industry in the U.S. for many years before
returning to the U.K. in 1990. On
returning to the U.K. he established himself in Somerset. Kevin is passionately interested in early
eighteenth century ceramics and his current work owes much to 18th
century creamwares.
His rich glazes are
achieved through a layering of glazes. Latex patches are applied over a base
glaze, then a second glaze is sprayed over the surface of the pot before the
patches are removed. A third, thin glaze
layer is applied which results in his high gloss finish.
Kevin de Choisy was born in 1954. He trained at Harrow School of art
under Colin Pearson and Walter Keeler.
Wendy Johnson
Wendy Johnson handbuilds functional and decorative pieces. She takes a playful approach towards
functionality which is mirrored through the hand drawn and illustrative quality
of her decoration.
Nature is a frequent
motif and can be seen taking the form of leaves and flowers, cut from sheets of
delicately decorated clay. There is a fragile quality to her illustration which
is contrasted with a bold use of colour as seen in vessels such as her brightly
coloured and rounded cups. Sitting on
top of cushioned rings, the cups also feature applied flowers and leaves
decorating the handles.
Clocks, candle sticks and story boxes are equally
illustrated sometimes with text suggestive of thoughts which may have inspired
the piece or notions she may be asking the viewer to consider.
Wendy Johnson graduated from Derbyshire College of Higher Education in 1990 with an HND in Studio Crafts (Ceramics) with a Distinction. She exhibits regularly and also works as a creative practitioner within educational settings and the community.
Rose Wallace
Rose Wallace recalls the tradition of Victorian mantelpiece ornaments
with her current Flatback Figures series. Victorian Staffordshire flatback
figures were made to depict people or mark events that were important and part
of popular culture at the time. Utilizing
a similar process, Rose works from casts taken from the products and the by-products
of contemporary life. She constructs pieces that can be seen as both
observations and as comments on present day society.
Working with a limited colour palette and fluid glazes that pool to
create a sumptuous depth of colour, the movement of the glaze picks out fine
details created through the casting process. She mixes references, with what look like cast
food containers acting as plinths from which cabbage leaf trees grow and embossed
wallpaper people rest and stretch whilst out jogging. Cream ware figures sit on
top cream ware pie tins, surfing the internet using very ornate watch-like
monitors.
These are pieces which engage with the viewer through the tactile
qualities of the making process and through subject matter, creating narratives
that we can respond to through our daily lives.
Robert Cooper
Robert Cooper has, for many years, employed recycling as a
mode of working. When re-using found
objects, for example, pottery shards from the Thames foreshore, this recycling
carries with it a sense of logic. Mixing remnants of the past with fresh ideas
to create new objects, with histories yet to be made. Robert then builds upon the historical layers
he’s assembled, bringing further elements into the mix. Recycled clays, oxides,
even glazes, materials often left over from his teaching sessions, nothing goes
to waste.
It is a considered mix and match approach. Glazes of Jewel-like blues or forest greens
run fluidly down internal surfaces catching the light against the marked, often
heavily textured and burnt exterior.
Robert talks about new narratives created through the
process of recycling. His teabowls
appear to hold years of stories and as the viewer we can begin to unravel them adding
to the mix our own tales.
Laurance Simon
Much humour can be found within Laurance Simon’s detailed
exploration of the animal kingdom and nature.
She tells stories through her use of imagery which is both painted in
bold colours and shaped with clay. Playing with the notion of function, Laurance
presents objects that can be used but in a way that asks us to play and wonder
at the tales she is telling.
Sara Moorhouse
Depending on how you look at Sara Moorhouse’s conical
vessels, it is possible to experience the same vessel in a number of different
ways. From the top, concentric bands of
colour of varying widths pull your eyes into a dizzying almost vibrating pulse
of line and colour. Take your eye
further down and view the piece from the side and what you saw as bands of
circular colour become abstracted, with the outside and inside surfaces in
conversation, now forming new shapes and patterns. Rims become the centre, insides and outsides invert,
insides become outsides… They play with
your senses in a very wonderful way. Set
two or three vessels together and the experience is intensified.
Sara’s use of colour and pattern stems from ways in which
spaces within landscapes appear altered depending on the constantly changing
seasons, weather and time. She used her conical forms as three dimensional
canvases, distilling these colours of the landscape into bands, visually altering
the size, depth and apparent shape of the form through the applied colour. Her newer works explore the illusion of colour
and movement, playing more purposefully with optical effects, playing with our
senses through careful and considered arrangements of colour and line.
Sara Moorhouse graduated from University of Wolverhampton with a BA (Hons) in Illustration and 3D design in 1996. She continued her studies and graduated from UWIC School of Art and Design, Cardiff with an MA Ceramics in 2004 and a PhD Ceramics 2010. She has exhibited within the UK and internationally since 2005.
.jpg)
.jpg)
.jpg)
.jpg)
.jpg)
.jpg)
.jpg)
.jpg)
.jpg)
