Artist’s Statement
My work currently can be divided into two main categories. The first and largest activity is the painting of ceramic plates. The second is paintings on canvas.
Though involved, the process of designing and then painting a plate can be achieved in far less time than it takes to complete a painting on canvas. Thus when painting a platter the possibility exists to experiment more rapidly with a wide range of visual ideas, assess their merit, experiment and finish with a completed piece of art. Often then, ideas or elements of paintings will first surface on my ceramic work before they manifest themselves on a larger and more complex scale as paintings.
The relative speed of producing a 38 cm platter,(usually on average one to two working days excluding the firing process) compared to the average painting whose creation can be measured in weeks or even months is the primary attraction of working in this medium.
Another reason for creating large decorative platters is both simultainiously ideological and pragmatic. It is rewarding to believe as an artist that the object you’ve made will become more than mere decoration when it becomes part of the purchasers life. Painting platters offers this possibility.
And because they can be used, appreciated at multiple levels, this highlights one of the intellectual considerations that influences why I paint platters.
I have always been interested in the tension that exists between the definition of a object as a work of art and a work of craft. There is no clear delineation and the subsequent blurring of boundaries offers me, the artist, another arena in which the subtle paradoxes of objects and their meanings can be experimented with. Is it just a large plate or a work of art? Is its primary power utilitarian or aesthetic?
Finally from a purely commercial perspective platters offer the potential for affordable commissions, works of art which can be both objects of beauty and powerful reminders of what we value and love in our lives.
My work currently can be divided into two main categories. The first and largest activity is the painting of ceramic plates. The second is paintings on canvas.
Though involved, the process of designing and then painting a plate can be achieved in far less time than it takes to complete a painting on canvas. Thus when painting a platter the possibility exists to experiment more rapidly with a wide range of visual ideas, assess their merit, experiment and finish with a completed piece of art. Often then, ideas or elements of paintings will first surface on my ceramic work before they manifest themselves on a larger and more complex scale as paintings.
The relative speed of producing a 38 cm platter,(usually on average one to two working days excluding the firing process) compared to the average painting whose creation can be measured in weeks or even months is the primary attraction of working in this medium.
Another reason for creating large decorative platters is both simultainiously ideological and pragmatic. It is rewarding to believe as an artist that the object you’ve made will become more than mere decoration when it becomes part of the purchasers life. Painting platters offers this possibility.
And because they can be used, appreciated at multiple levels, this highlights one of the intellectual considerations that influences why I paint platters.
I have always been interested in the tension that exists between the definition of a object as a work of art and a work of craft. There is no clear delineation and the subsequent blurring of boundaries offers me, the artist, another arena in which the subtle paradoxes of objects and their meanings can be experimented with. Is it just a large plate or a work of art? Is its primary power utilitarian or aesthetic?
Finally from a purely commercial perspective platters offer the potential for affordable commissions, works of art which can be both objects of beauty and powerful reminders of what we value and love in our lives.
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