Fragments

Exploring the poetry of archetypal forms through textural interventions, I start with a thrown from which I then transform. Working in an improvisational and expressionistic style with meandering and woven texture, the vessel form is revealed, concealed, embraced and transformed by the applied surface texture.

Slip, underglaze and glaze play an important part in the composition adding tonal layers that highlight and obscure aspects of the texture and form. Increasingly I am employing experimental happenings with mark making and action painting on the wheel and the use of sodium silicate to crack the surface in places in order to generate an underlying energy in each work. Collage plays an important part in my work, layering textures and glazes in order to allow underlayers to be revealed in unexpected way. I am interested in the liminal spaces that are created through these techniques, highlighting the small details in the spaces in between and in certain cases emphasising these spaces by cutting and splitting the vessel open. Each vessel is an investigation where no surface is the same and no two works are alike as each piece seems to lead on to another inquiry in different clay bodies, texture and glaze combinations. The overall effect evokes an atmospheric quality to the vessels and references landscapes, skyscapes, music and poetry.