Surface Matters

. . . somewhere between painting and printing . . .

Working on varied surfaces is part of my art making process. Moving between round and flat surfaces from clay to paper to canvas and back to clay enables exploration of a theme.

In the making of men on the underground, ceramic vessels and images, I developed abstract paper sketches in acrylic and pencil then worked on rough crank clay with smooth washes of slip and underglaze before printing drawings of men walking through the underground onto the abstract clay surface. The whole image on the curved ceramic piece can’t be seen at once; the viewer is able to see the surface up close though and from any angle. The paintings are like stills from a film.

I work with imagery somewhere between painting and printing, mark making and abstracted colors. It’s a process that stops in unexpected places - beginning ideas on paper with thick or thin paint and then adding delicate lines with abstract shapes, continuing the process onto clay and then back to the two dimensional plane. The surfaces react differently to your mark making tools but the images remain.

The vessels and images created were part of an exploration around the Men’s Game. A participatory conversation piece made for Leytonstone Art’s Trail in 2019.

From - Surface Matters Exhibition: Hastings Arts Forum - March 2022
Showing men’s vessels : men on the underground