After a long and successful career as an illustrator, Derek returned to clay. He had first encountered it at school and studied pottery as part of a foundation course at Farnham School of Art.
Many of his sculptures start with a narrative that is either imagined, half remembered, carefully researched or commissioned. A love of whimsy, folk art, religious and tribal art, and his background as an illustrator, all go into the mix. His output is low and slow. Occasionally, Derek returns to a theme but, unless specifically designed as a set, every piece he creates is unique.
Derek works with a variety of earthenware and wild clays into which he often adds other particles of additional material. He usually constructs from rolled sheets of clay and uses oxides and multiple firings to give a distressed or patinated surface. He fires in an electric kiln to a maximum of 1100 degrees centigrade.
“I’m keen on the idea of my work having an underlying logic. A sort of implied provenance. I like to to view my work as artefacts or relics retrieved from a place that may…. or may not have existed.” – Derek Matthews
PRODUCT CODE:DM589Y6
PRODUCT CODE:DM589Y7
PRODUCT CODE:DM589Y5
PRODUCT CODE:DM589Y4
PRODUCT CODE:DM589Y3
PRODUCT CODE:DM589Y8
PRODUCT CODE:DM589Y2
PRODUCT CODE:DM589Y1