Red and Black with Blue and Yellow

An exhibition at Marsden Woo Gallery that comprised an investigation in four strands. The vase an archetype that is fundamental to the history of ceramic production. Usually domestic in scale, the vase form makes reference to many utilitarian functions, and often also celebratory concerns related to human emotions and narratives. Frequently such forms come to occupy positions of display, their function having shifted from the physical to the metaphysical. These tripartite vases are improvisations and deconstructions of a number of vase types, built around a basic square grid and grouped in threes, consisting of a pair framing a single form. The scale of the cup is small and intimate, like sculpture for the palm of the hand. In this series the vertical axis, so definitively associated with the potter’s wheel, is flipped on its side to tip over these conventions, and the ground red lines at all the edges and corners can be perceived as an outline drawing that reveals the underlying geometry of each piece. The Bowl series of two bowl forms extend some of the themes and preoccupations of the vase series. Here, though, instead of the idea of a vase forming the outside profile of the piece, it is seen to be shaping the horizontal, interior and contained surface of the monolithic forms. Three Plate installations exploit some of the early results of the AHRC funded project – Extending the Potential of the Digitally Printed Ceramic Surface. Building on earlier investigations into Moiré interference patterns using monochrome lines these works investigate the interference of colours with each other. Red and black interfere on a white ground to give the impression of metallic copper. Red and blue interfere on a yellow ground to give the impression of a range of greens, purples and oranges