Ceramics Gallery
Aberystwyth Arts Centre
16/10/2021-08/01/2022
flux & poise is an exhibition of new work stemming from my Material Matters project, funded by Arts Council of Wales. The body of work exhibited reveals key developments in my practice since July 2019 when resident at Aberystwyth Arts Centre, where I immersed myself in the diverse West Wales landscape. The project enabled me to make developments in both form and surface by introducing asymmetry and pushing my use of glaze materials and techniques to new levels. Porcelain was introduced as an additional material contrasting with the grogged stoneware I have used for the past two decades.
The inspiration for my hand-built sculptural vessels remains our interrelationship with nature’s seasons and cycles. I am drawn to the vessel as symbolic form echoing the built environment and to contrasting textures resulting from energetic forces of growth and decay which interact and transform the sense of order. Embracing contrasts of control and chance within the glazing process, I render the textured surface through brushed layers of slips and glazes reacting within oxidised firing processes. Varying the thickness of the glaze layers and using selective volatile materials brings surface disruption through blistering, cratering and crawling. Glazing and firing processes are repeated until optimum depth and complexity of surface are achieved.
Paul Wearing
