Barbara Gittings

Barbara’s smoke fired, nerikomi porcelain vessels are quiet, contemplative and sensual, and she wants anyone looking at the work to want to touch it and be drawn in.

Nature achieves multi-layered effects via the laying down of strata, weathering and erosion. She is fascinated by the geometry in nature, especially as growth and random chaotic forces skew and distort the initial perfect symmetry. She is constantly exploring these balances between symmetry and asymmetry, perfection and imperfection in her work and is drawn to irregular repetition, primitive mark-making and soft, earthy colours. Images and patterns sink into the subconscious, to be released when one engages with the clay and the submerged information emerges to dictate the work in progress.

Barbara endeavours to allow for the accidental in her process and to create work that embraces chance.