Manningham Gallery
Victoria Australia 2012

An idea is the principle element for the artist, the material of less consequence. If I cannot create something in porcelain I must think of other materials.

For this reason I decided in 2007 to redirect my attention, to travel to Italy and to reside there for several years and concentrate on painting. The trip also enabled me to develop my work with Etruscan bucchero ceramics and offered a unique opportunity of collaboration with other professional artists.

In this time I have expressed my impressions of Italy in clay, paint and ink, living within the culture and amongst the people, associating with fellow artists in direct cultural exchange. I have also been able to study and to absorb the history of a peninsula steeped in art and culture spanning two and a half millennia. My new environment offered a world of inspiration in the form of objects found in museums from historic monuments and sites dating back to the Etruscans and leading up to the Italian Renaissance. With centres of the arts such as Rome, Florence and Venice on my doorstep, I have been able to study masterpieces and observe the living history that is Italy, enhancing inspiration from my own life along with observations of the environment and its people.

The ceramics

The strength of my work is in the ability to create spontaneity in each piece during the session on the potter's wheel. As a brush or chisel is the tool of a painter or sculptor, so too is the wheel mine. The dynamics are created through light and shade, modeled through the use of indentations and various surfaces and colours. The translucency of the porcelain contributes to this by passing light through thin linear markings and fine edges. As in a quick sketch or abstraction the outcome relies on experience, intuition and a confidence in technique. Often the result is uncertain and the work lost or discarded but the journey is an exciting one and constantly rewarding.

More recently, with ceramics, I have been concentrating on the fine white porcelain surfaces to produce beautifully refined, marble-like finishes as a reflection of the sculptural works I see in Italy and contrast this with the velvety-smooth finish of the Etruscan, black-fired bucchero work.

All of the ceramic works that I have completed over the past number of years have been directly inspired by exposure to the arts of the ancient Etruscans, the Romans and the Renaissance, as have the paintings. The new ceramic forms have been influenced greatly by the traditional shapes that emerged from the Etruscan society 2,500 years ago, especially in the larger, stemmed open bowls or "calice" and the decorative friezes that chase abstract shapes around the surfaces. But the surfaces too arise from the smooth surfaces of marble and classical forms that are everywhere.

The porcelain work is fired in an electric kiln to 1260oC. The clay is from Limoges and has suited my techniques up till now, which rely on a clay that can be thrown and altered with little chance of cracking while also responding to the mark making and grooving applied immediately after throwing, without tearing or resisting.

In contrast, the Bucchero pieces are made from an Italian volcanic clay, mostly wheel-turned and polished, then smoke-fumed in a reduction atmosphere to permeate the black colour through the clay body which, when polished and fired, has the appearance of metalware. Bucchero is a distinctively Etruscan product that emerged around the 7th century BC in Southern Etruria (central Italy).

Regardless of the medium, as in a quick sketch or abstraction, the outcome relies on experience, intuition and a confidence in technique. Often the result is uncertain and the work lost or discarded but the journey is an exciting one and constantly rewarding.

The paintings

Painting has always been a personal and private passion and is a significant addition to my development as a complete artist. It does not replace or impede my work as a ceramic artist, on the contrary, it enhances the creative process by introducing new elements to my work such as colour and pictorial expression.

Inspiration for this body of work undoubtedly derives from living and working in Italy over the past number of years. Stimulation comes from everywhere, we are surrounded by it, living in a medieval hill top town that rises over Etruscan ruins, with Renaissance overlays, piazzas and palazzi infiltrating throughout. This close city dwelling means we are intimately involved in people's lives, customs, traditions and daily routines and this certainly shows in many of the subjects of the paintings.