Mark Dally

Mark makes black and white domestic slipware using a combination of traditional craft and modern industrial ceramic techniques, in a contemporary take on Staffordshire slipware. Currently, he is developing his tableware and large functional work into sculptural one-off pieces.

These include slab built, stacked designs for sculptures which depend on gravity to interlock. He is also experimenting with platinum lustre transfers to exploit the differing reflective qualities of glazed and lustred surfaces.

After a BA in textile design, Mark applied his love of surface pattern to ceramics on his MA course. He is inspired by 17th century Staffordshire slipware and mid-century Stoke-on-Trent industrial ceramics. Sci-fi anachronisms from his 1960s childhood remain influences on his forms and patterns.

Mark starts by making plasterwork moulds of found objects. He uses high-fired white earthenware to slip cast, wheel-form and extrude his one-off tableware and large functional forms. Each sculpture is constructed from a combination of earthenware elements (slip cast, slab built, hand-built, wheel-formed, sprigged and extruded), which he joins when leather-hard.

His characteristic black and white surfaces are achieved through the use of stains and slips which are brushed, stencilled, slip trailed and dripped. Often, he uses digitally manipulated motifs for his hand-cut paper-resist stencils. His pieces are glazed and finished with bright gold and platinum lustres, and sometimes with raku-fired elements.