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Morgan Campbell
Gambier Island
Since my training in ceramics in Britain in the 1960s, I have concentrated on hand-built slab pottery, depending mostly on texture for decoration. After my retirement in 2002 I set up a studio where I produce sculptural work and a range of tiles for residential and institutional use. Primarily I fire to Cone 6 (stoneware) in an electric kiln and use oxides and commercial glazes.
Travelling in Europe, I have seen the work of a variety of studio potters in Ireland, Germany and Greece. Two artists whose work I particularly like and who have inspired the work I have submitted for this exhibition are Kostas Panaretos and Nikos Sklavenitis, both of whom exhibit their work in Crete and elsewhere. Panaretos works in earthenware, producing smoke-fired figures decorated with terra sigillata; Sklavenitis works in raku, producing smaller, but in some ways similar, stylized standing figures with incised designs and muted glazes. Both artists are influenced by early Cycladic and Minoan cult figures.
I am trying to create a West Coast iconography to decorate similar, abstracted, almost androgynous figures. I use carving and sculptural techniques along with some applied sprigs from my production tiles.
Since my training in ceramics in Britain in the 1960s, I have concentrated on hand-built slab pottery, depending mostly on texture for decoration. After my retirement in 2002 I set up a studio where I produce sculptural work and a range of tiles for residential and institutional use. Primarily I fire to Cone 6 (stoneware) in an electric kiln and use oxides and commercial glazes.
Travelling in Europe, I have seen the work of a variety of studio potters in Ireland, Germany and Greece. Two artists whose work I particularly like and who have inspired the work I have submitted for this exhibition are Kostas Panaretos and Nikos Sklavenitis, both of whom exhibit their work in Crete and elsewhere. Panaretos works in earthenware, producing smoke-fired figures decorated with terra sigillata; Sklavenitis works in raku, producing smaller, but in some ways similar, stylized standing figures with incised designs and muted glazes. Both artists are influenced by early Cycladic and Minoan cult figures.
I am trying to create a West Coast iconography to decorate similar, abstracted, almost androgynous figures. I use carving and sculptural techniques along with some applied sprigs from my production tiles.
