Let it Slip is a joint exhibition featuring the works of Prue Cooper, Hannah McAndrew, and Sean Miller as they celebrate their new slipware.
Slipware refers to the decorating process whereby slip, a liquid mixture of clay, is dripped, splashed, painted, or otherwise applied to leather-hard pre-fired ceramics.
The three ceramicists pay close attention to this visual dimension of their works, with Prue Cooper focusing heavily on the quotations that adorn the edges of her pieces, Hannah McAndrew using her 18 years of experience and practice to embody the floral abundance of her garden in her pots, and Sean Miller developing a range of functional domestic table and kitchen-ware influenced by English medieval and later traditions.
Although brought together by their mutual affinity for slip, each ceramicist explores unique aspects of their making and decorating process.
In this exhibition, Hannah McAndrew explores ways of translating love and recollections of a person into slip. Prue Cooper recalls conversations she had with her brother and utilises quotes and imagery to bring her pieces to life. Sean Miller experiments with variations of marbling and feathering techniques and enjoys observing the subtle differences to the final product once fired depending on where it is placed when it is wood fired.
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Jenny Southam hand builds figurative sculptures in terracotta clay. She delights in exploring colourful gestural mark-making over their surfaces. This painterly decoration aims to echo the emotional resonance of each piece.
“When I enter the studio I am searching for that serene state of absolute absorption that making and drawing can gift us, which we all wish will, in some manner, enrich our audience.” – Jenny Southam
In a career spanning nearly 50 years, ceramicist, Sophie MacCarthy has developed a unique and distinctive personal style. Through her subtle and bold use of coloured slips, painterly brushwork, stencils and wax-resist, she evokes the colours, forms and movements of the passing seasons. Often focusing on the ground, she finds beauty in the accidental compositions created by wind-blown leaves, stalks and detritus sometimes gathered around a storm drain or scattered over concrete and tarmac, juxtaposing the vibrant colours of the natural world with the gritty textures of the urban environment.
‘She has a poetic insight into the natural world’ David Whiting
Throughout his long career Peter has always sought pathways to the development of new ideas. Often this is a slow process, but sometimes a particular event speeds things along.
Partaking of two residencies in China recently, where Peter worked in porcelain at high temperatures, led him to develop a new body of work, made alongside his existing practice to which Peter is still deeply committed.
This new exhibition represents the outcome of Peter’s working practice.
'This exhibition explores objects that express a quiet equilibrium: fragile, shifting forms that exist in a state of delicate imbalance. Their stillness is easily disturbed, as if the act of holding too tightly might cause something essential to disappear. The works reflect an interest in forms that resist perfection, remaining slightly unresolved, unsettled, and quietly alive.' Akiko Hirai