Clive Bowen is one of Britain’s finest studio potters. He is internationally known and respected for his powerful yet intimate pieces, with his works widely exhibited in the UK and throughout Europe, North America and Japan.
From his Devon studio, Clive produces slip-decorated earthenware pots, which he says are “… all basically to do with food and presenting food, I’ve always been about that.” Clive uses the local Fremington clay, a red earthenware clay used for centuries for traditional North Devon wares. His work is mostly wheel thrown with some hand-pressed dishes. Making their debut with us are new extruded vessels for flower displays, heavily influenced by Japanese vases.
Lately, he has been decorating his pieces whilst listening to music, often jazz. The rhythm and energy of the music is felt and channeled through his fingers, whether in direct contact with the slip or via slip trailing, combing and sgraffito.
Clive fires his work in his large double-chambered wood-firing kiln.
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
