CENTRE FOR MODERN & CONTEMPORARY
STUDIO CERAMICS AND ORIGINAL ARTWORK

Alex says
"Since graduating from Cardiff School of Art and Design (UWIC) with a first class honours in Ceramics, I went on to win ‘Student of the Year Award 2010’ at Hafield, Art in Clay. I then underwent a residency at Kelly College in Devon, where I am creating a new body of work investigating the importance of both form and texture when producing a well balanced piece.

Along side my own practice I am also building a large reduction gas kiln, as well as teaching adult evening classes and students from the college between the ages of twelve and eighteen.
My work is formally inspired by the simple ceramic profiles that lend themselves to having a harmonious connection with the textured surface, which is a response to my fascination for touch. Using the thrown vessel as a canvas I aim to explore gesture and expression through glaze surface and sourced clays. My investigation into the relationship of surface to form aims to create a cohesive artifact where intense activity is contained between a thrown foot and rim. I experiment with the proportional relationship and scale of body and surface to the focusing elements of foot and rim.

By sourcing my own dug clay from beaches around Devon and Cornwall I have created a personal and unique palette of glazes. For me there is something extremely fascinating about transforming a substance taken from the earth, and manipulating it from monotonous tan clay to a striking and vibrant blue glaze. I have achieved this through experimentation with high fired reduction glazes layered over my locally found material. It is the range of textural qualities that can be obtained from different clays and materials taken from the ground that really excites me as a ceramicist and a human being.

Through re-firing my work to stoneware temperatures I have the opportunity to add an element of composition and tension to the canvas, that being the vessel itself. I accomplish this by applying raw porcelain to the fired objects. I use three different gestural markings, pouring, distinctive bands/lines and the cross. I believe these three expressional movements can bring a balance to my practice and can transform the simple forms mentioned previous to a unified and successful decretive object".