Derek Matthews
Derek tries to give his work a sort of internal logic: an implied provenance, as if each piece belongs to a forgotten culture or an alternate history.
Influenced by folk, religious, and tribal art and more often than not, a sprinkling of whimsy, his pieces often carry a narrative thread: imagined, half-remembered or meticulously researched.
Other forces shape his work too, including the unpredictable nature of the clay itself. Using a range of earthenware clays including wild clay direct from his garden, often mixing in additional materials. These “inclusions” can complicate the process, but they contribute to a kind of alchemy, lending the finished surfaces a distressed, patinated character.
Derek likes his pieces to feel like artefacts or relics—objects unearthed from a place that may or may not have ever existed.
Working slowly and deliberately, he focuses on one piece at a time, meaning his output is purposely low. Derek does not glaze his work. Instead, he uses natural oxides to add colour and carefully wax polishes each piece by hand.
His hope is that once they leave his hands, collectors and viewers will project their own stories onto them and add fresh layers of meaning and personal narratives that he could never anticipate.
Derek is a selected member of the Craft Potters Association, and his work now resides in many private collections in the UK, Europe and America.
