Cleo Mussi creates elaborate mosaics out of ceramic tiles made from old pieces of china carefully cut down to size. They are full of vitality, humour and quirky detail, although some seem to take on a more sinister character, highlighting the darker sides of contemporary life. While acknowledging the skill involved in her work, she describes herself as a folk artist as she says, ‘my work is naïve, figurative and all about story-telling’.
Ceramist Rosanna Martin makes simply shaped, elegant porcelain pots, decorated with subtle, abstract patterns. They are all hand-thrown as the throwing process and the very physical interaction with the material it involves is a vital part of her practice. She says, 'Most of my inspiration comes from actually sitting and making.'
Stephen Dixon has long had a reputation as a political potter, making ceramics in which the hard-hitting message is just as important as the form. He sees himself as part of the British satirical tradition and uses his ceramics to comment on contemporary issues ranging from the Iraq war to colonialism and the banking crisis. Currently Professorial Research Fellow in Contemporary Crafts at MMU, he has worked as curator, writer and lecturer and his work is in numerous public collections including the V&A, the Crafts Council and the Fine Arts Museum of San Francisco.
Ceramist Katharine Morling is best known for her life-size black and white sculptures full of quirky, graphic detail of domestic objects such as tables, chairs and ladders. Although she calls herself a '3D person', drawing is very important to Morling and her sculptures are in effect sketches of clay furniture which play on the viewer’s preconceptions about both materials and function.
David Rhys Jones sees himself as a detached observer of the modern metropolis. He makes work in a range of media, but is best known for his ceramic sculptures transfer printed with evocative photographic images taken during journeys through particular landscapes. They may include architectural details, anonymous figures or graphic material like signage and house numbers, and they all convey a strong sense of place and historic atmosphere.
Potter Richard Miller has the best of both professional worlds. He makes his own one-off pieces of domestic stoneware, as well as running Froyle Tiles, an ailing enterprise that he took over in 2005. The now successful tile company provides him with the financial security to make his own work and allows him to make a living working with the material he loves, clay.
Ceramist Kate Malone makes beautifully constructed, glowing pots, often in complex shapes based on natural forms such as fruit or seeds. A real hands-on potter, Malone says she is ‘addicted to making’ and describes herself as ‘a doer not a thinker’. Although her pots have been exhibited in museums and galleries throughout the UK, USA and Europe, Malone doesn’t make any grandiose claims for them; she says, ‘I am happy for my pieces to be considered decorative art or craft – in fact I love the word craft as that’s a huge part of what I do’.
Potter Emmanuel Cooper’s first solo show was in 1968 and since then he has continued to regularly exhibit his vessels which are characterised by an interest in marrying relatively classic forms to vibrantly coloured glazes and unusual textures. But he also has other interests: he was a founding editor with Eileen Lewenstein, and since 1996 has edited, the highly respected magazine Ceramic Review, he is Visiting Professor at the Royal College of Art and has been awarded an OBE for his services to the arts. However in spite of his writing and teaching activities, Cooper remains at heart a potter, saying, ‘The head, heart and hand literally and metaphorically come together when I'm creating.’
Ceramicist Matthew Chambers makes complex geometric stoneware sculpture and vessels. As his primary interest is the actual process of making rather than producing a functional or figurative form, his work is strictly abstract. He says, ‘I explore shape through construction and my forms are quite precise but have a natural quality. I try and make these two different aspects complement each other.’
Artist Tom Barnett is a bit of an enigma. Part ceramist, part sculptor, part performance artist, he specialises in staging dramatic sculptural, site-specific kiln firing events. ‘I see these firings as celebratory events that are positive agents for change’, he says and, for him, the ceramics that survive the firing are less important than the transitory spectacle or ritual of the firing itself.
Rob Kesseler’s work is difficult to pin down. He is Professor of Ceramic Art and Design at Central Saint Martins College of Art and Design but is very far from being a conventional potter, often working with photography and digital images rather than clay. His work bridges the art-science divide and he calls himself an artist, explaining that ‘I work in the area where craft, art and design overlap’. But the one theme linking Kesseler’s wide-ranging body of work is his overwhelming fascination with plant material and the natural world.
Rob will be speaking at The Making's 'Inspired by Nature - Theatre of Making' seminar at West Dean in June 2007. . Visit Rob's website.
Seed images from "Seeds, Time Capsules of Life" by Kesseler & Stuppy, Published by Papadakis Publishers.
Potter Walter Keeler has been working in clay for over forty years and during that time his work has ranged from stoneware and raku to earthenware. His forms are equally various, with an early interest in sculptural pieces gradually being replaced by strictly functional pots and he now says, ‘If the pots could not be used I would not bother making them.’ However his functional pots are rarely straightforward and many have a strong ornamental element with often witty, unexpected details. They bridge the gap between practical domestic pottery and fine-art orientated ceramics – they are beautifully made studio pottery pieces but with highly innovative and contemporary forms.