Artefacts

Verve sits down with artist Richard Penn , who late last year won the Premier Award at the 2022 Portage Ceramic Awards, with his clay collection, Artefacts.

Please tell us more about yourself and how you became interested in making art.

My uncle, Lionel Abrams, was an incredible artist, and my father is a musician and photographer so I grew up in an environment electrified by interesting objects and paintings. Even so, I only realised how much I enjoyed making art in my final year of school when I dropped science as a subject and replaced it with art. I immediately knew that, for better or for worse, art was my future.

How did you initially get inspired in the art of clay sculpting?

I began working with clay in 2019 as way of making ceramic bases for small bronze sculptures. I never managed to make those bases because I was immediately seduced by the medium and its transformative potential!

What have you learned from working with clay? What have been some of the challenges and rewards?

The kiln is like a chrysalis in which all sorts of scientific magic, both predictable and surprising, occurs. I have learned to release much of the control I usually exert over a medium to the thermochemical process of firing itself.

Tell us more of the materials and tools you use, and the part of the process you like best.

I spent a month at Driving Creek Potteries in the Coromandel which was a significant inspiration for my current practice. I initially wanted to make all my work out of the Corogold clay which comes directly out of the ground there but after doing some experiments I realised that the clay didn’t have the elasticity necessary for my slab building process. I had to use a commercial clay but I successfully created a Corogold slip which I slopped onto the pieces after construction. This is what translates into the rusty finish of these sculptures.

Is there a dream project you'd love to work on?

I would love to work on a larger scale for both my ceramic wall pieces as well as my indoor and outdoor ceramic constructions. These are made with a welded metal frame (flat for a wall piece and 3D for a floor construction) which I then clad with irregular or geometric ceramic plates, dotted with fired glass and burnt metals!

Who, or what inspires you most in the work you do?

You catch me at a time when science fiction is my greatest inspiration. These writers grapple with the truly unimaginable vastness of time and space and the possibilities for life and civilisations that it encompasses.

Do you have any particular routine such as playing music, wearing lucky socks, starting early in the morning, that sort of thing?

I wake up every day at 7am which is when Frank, our standard poodle, is about ready for his morning walk! After that, my days are filled with stories, be they podcasts, or audiobooks, and I work solidly until Frank’s afternoon amble at 6pm. The day is not complete without a lunchbreak on the balcony with my wife, Robyn, who is also an artist and also works from home.

Passions outside of art?

I love learning about the fauna and flora of the place I live in. During my residency at Driving Creek, I would spend at least an hour each day in the forest with an identifier app called Seek which helped me learn and be able to identify over 50 native trees and bushes. I also love teaching and have taught at both the Otago Polytechnic and at Elam School of Fine Arts at Auckland Uni.

Your dream project?

My dream project would be a residency at either the Archie Bray Foundation for Ceramic Arts in Montana, USA, or the European Ceramic Workcentre (EKWC) in The Netherlands. These centres have the capacity and technical know-how to facilitate really large-scale ceramics.

Future plans?

My future plans are to build up a market for my work here in NZ by constantly developing and exhibiting my work. I would like to break my record for financial stability which sits at three and a half minutes!

Richard’s winning work can be seen at Te Uru Waitākere Contemporary Gallery, West Auckland, until 5 March.

Instagram: @richardpennsa