ARTIST STATEMENT

I am drawn to clay’s unique ability to preserve the act of making, as both conscious and unconscious moments of touch are held in the surface of the ceramic object.

My practice displays a strong relationship between surface and form, informed by a BA in painting and printmaking. As I explore ideas surrounding the mark of the maker, temporality, trace and place, I refer to a range of historic ceramic artefacts, such as the cuneiform tablet, as well as writings on social theory, in particular Marc Auge’s Oblivion.

Throughout the making of a work there is a continual shift between layering and erasing: a conversation with the material. I make careful and subtle interventions at strategic points during the mutable states of the clay. By visually scanning the surface of an evolving work, I read impressions it may have picked up. These impressions directly inform the conscious actions I impose on the material.

The end point of a work is not defined by firing the clay, as I continue to alter the surface once the object is fixed as ceramic. I sense the conclusion of a work when I reach a place of wanting to hold onto what is left - a sense of something pre-existing revealing itself.

Surface Confliction - 2020 - Terracotta, Porcelain and Wood - H37m W31cm D12cm