Monochrome - Surface

17th March - 23rd June 2018

An exploration of contemporary monochromatic ceramics, glass and wood revealing the unique surfaces and forms created by using various craft practices and techniques.  Well established and emerging makers combine in this discovery of contemporary craft practice. 

Image; Eric Moss

Simon Conolly – stoneware relief wall hung pieces and nesting boxes

Much of Simon’s work is inspired by his love of the British landscape and by his respect for those who keep it alive.  His studio is set in dramatic landscape in the heart of Corvedale in Shropshire.  Simon creates original sculpture from his studio in Shropshire overlooking Wenlock Edge.  His work is inspired by personal observation of the British countryside and by life in a rural community.  Simon has been a finalist at the ‘Wildlife Artist of the Year’ exhibition at the Mall Galleries, London in 2015, 2016 and 2017. 

 

Eric Moss – Stoneware and naked raku wave forms and geometrics

Eric Moss creates carefully engineered, modifiable ceramic sculpture.  A mix of wheel-thrown, press-moulded and slab-built forms suggest a meld of mechanics with marine and plant life.  Often multi-part and at varied scales, each unique sculpture can 'stand alone' or combine with others in manifold display opportunities, bringing the owner into the creative process.  Themes evolve and diversify naturally from plinth to wall, from interior to exterior display.

 

Luke Bishop – stoneware

Luke makes contemporary stoneware and porcelain vessels using a variety of traditional methods, including the potter’s wheel.  His work often plays with and questions our typically held assumptions of what makes an object functional.  PORUS – his recent work in black clay, is an exploration in the slight subversion of function; objects with curiously shaped and placed handles and spouts invoke the possibility of function and usage whilst defying utility. Rough, volcanic bottle forms suggest modernity in shape yet infer a mysterious archaeological past. Visible tool marks, surface chattering, fissures, the clay body’s pyroplasticity and imperfections all speak to the making journey of these objects.  The PORUS objects are high-fired to 1260C and unglazed allowing the full detail of the clay body to be revealed and contemplated.

 

Clare Wilson – cane and murine glass techniques

Clare is a glass maker currently based in Hampshire.  She graduated in 2007 with a BA (Honours) in Glass from the Edinburgh College of Art in Scotland.  She was then fortunate enough to be selected for the two-year associate training program at JamFactory Contemporary Craft and Design in Adelaide, Australia.  Here she was able to build and hone her glass blowing skills through a rigorous program focusing on design, prototyping, and production.  On completion of the training program Clare became a studio tenant at the JamFactory where she continued to produce blown glass tableware which was sold throughout Australia.  Being part of the international glass community is important to Clare and she frequently travels as part of her practice.  The opportunity to work with other skilled glass makers helps her to learn new skills and enhance those she already has.  It also offers the chance to share ideas and design concepts and to get constructive feedback from her peers and leading makers.  Clare works primarily with cane and murrine techniques making functional art objects.  Her choice of employing a muted pallet heightens her signature frenetic patterning.  She is drawn to glass and working with cane in particular because of the technical challenges involved and the infinite possibilities available in the application of the technique.  Clare’s long commitment to this material and its processes result in a skilled and sensitive body of work that continues to evolve.  

Kevin Hutson – turned wood

Kevin’s first experience with wood turning was 27 years ago with a small modest drill attachment lathe.  He was completely enthralled by the different shapes and configurations that could be achieved and then he progressed from this lathe onto a larger and more professional machine.  Having turned conventional shapes for a period of time he found the need to advance towards more aesthetic shapes and he now blends subtle tones of colour to emphasise the variety of grain found in wood.  Each piece is finished by a process of a mixture of natural oils such as Danish Oil and Liquid Paraffin over a period of three days.  Kevin’s training involved a five year apprenticeship in Carpentry and Joinery at The Brighton Technical College successfully passing both City and Guilds and the Advanced City and Guilds examinations.  After 16 years practical experience Kevin progressed as a freelance draughtsman in architecturally designed joinery manufacture.  He found this experience inspired his designing for the more creative forms and is completely self-taught in this type of creativity.

 

Penny Fowler – hand carved and finely sanded porcelain and bone china forms

As a London based potter Penny’s work reflects 21st century living and the city in which she lives and works.  It is characterised by clean, precise lines and forms using a strong palette.  Penny’s objective in working with clay is to create beautiful dynamic forms.  She uses porcelain and bone china clays making moulds in which she casts her forms which enables her to make very thin fine forms, often using layers or inlays of different coloured clays.  The forms are hand carved and then finely sanded to achieve a natural smooth quality.  Penny often makes forms that link together as pairs.  Penny’s aim is to explore the subtlety of the hollow form in which the function is secondary to the form.  Her interest in bone china is to create carved forms with variable areas of translucency, exploring the possibilities of light and shade, sometimes incorporating opaque areas with additional colour.  Penny does not see her work as primarily functional, rather than as pieces in their own right which enhance the interior in which they are placed and as pieces in which form and decoration become fused.  Inspiration is always from life and drawn from a wide variety of sources including people, architectural features and objects in museums.  Her work arises from abstracting, developing and combining different aspects of the natural and the man-made world.  Her bold simple sculptural forms are layered and carved through coloured clays with inspiration coming from adapting her drawings of the human body and urban landscapes.

 

Diane Horne – earthenware vessels

Diane originally trained as a printmaker and was very much influenced by the pattern and textures which describe the land.  Today, as a ceramic artist she continues to explore these elements through the extraordinary and transformative material that is clay.  Her earthenware vessels are inspired by the ancient, coastal landscapes near her home in Wales.  Diane casts printed paper clay into forms which reference rock, tide and time.  She is drawn to using a monochrome palette as it enhances the subtleties of texture, where even the smallest of unexpected detail is revealed.  Pattern and movement energise and, at times flow between internal and external surfaces, encouraging exploration of more than just one viewpoint.  The print is waxed to enhance the detail, but the vessel left unglazed, so the clay is able to breathe and absorb warmth and light, the warm, white edges harking back to Diane’s printmaking past.  Each piece is unique and speaks of Diane’s place in time and, when placed in groups, a narrative begins.

 

Ilona Sulikova – coiled raku fired ceramics

​Ilona makes large, full-bodied vessels and decorates them with intricate geometric patterns that repeat, expand and contract as they travel around the vessel.  The intention is to create sequences of rhythm and movement.  In order to achieve fusion between the pattern and the spherical form all pieces are raku fired.  Ilona’s raku pots are built using the coiling techniques that she learned while working with Somali and Sudanese potters.  She employs simple pattern sequences to interact with the 3D form in a dynamic but harmonious way.  Through raku firing she achieves a fusion between the pattern and the finely balanced form.

 

Sarah Partridge – carved smoke fired vessels

Sarah discovered the craft of Pottery at 11 years of age, where she was fortunate to attend a School that had two brilliant and inspiring Art teachers, Rick Kirby and Gloria Dimambro.  The Art Department had a fully equipped Pottery Studio, and pottery was fully included in the Art Curriculum.  She has been studying and designing Ceramics since 1997.  Her work is sculptural and explores natural forms, where she is inspired by patterns and textures found in nature and landscapes.  Sarah’s work is hand built, most often using traditional coiling methods.  She strives to create strong, simple forms, usually embellished with carved surfaces.  Her work is an exploration of the structure of patterns found in nature and spirals are a common theme.  Her work is an exploration of the structure of patterns found in nature and spirals are a common theme.  Sarah Partridge’s current work explores the possibilities of surface texture and pattern, natural or geometric, in harmony with its form.  Work is made in series, slowly developing scale, form, texture and pattern.  Pieces are smoke fired to a rich, dense black, which adds a depth of tone, and a strong tactile quality to the work. 

 

Sue Mundy – hand built ceramics decorated with slips and oxides

Sue’s organic work demonstrates her early obsession with natural forms such as pebbles, rocks, the sea and other objects hewn from the landscape.   The unique characteristic of her forms and surface textures are the result of combining two different clays together, such that a coarse yet plastic body is achieved.  Sue uses hand-building techniques which she feels offers her a more considered way of working.  This enables her to nurture each individual piece and allow time for its own development and growth.  To emphasize the entrenched marks made on each surface, slips and oxides are selectively applied during the course of the drying process.  Finally the works are fired in a gas kiln, often in a reduction atmosphere.