Our Current Falmouth Show- Masters of Colour

Our current exhibition ‘Masters of Colour’ is open from the 10th – 29th March 2017 and celebrates four of our gallery artists and their exceptional use of colour within different mediums. In this collection you can see vibrant paintings by  Myles Oxenford and Richard Tuff along with Paul Jackson’s painterly ceramics and Louisa Taylor’s pastel coloured porcelain vessels.

Myles Oxenford paintings currently on display in the gallery

Myles lives and works in rural Cornwall where he explores the landscape of his surrounding environment with his dog (who he paints on rainy days) and often his surfboard. He also returns frequently to paint in Scotland, Wales and the Alps.

”In my paintings I want to convey the feeling of sitting in and becoming part of the landscape. I primarily paint outside to capture the light and movement that make the landscape alive to me. By exploring colour and brush marks I am constantly experimenting with different ways of balancing a desire to represent and abstract the Cornish landscape in my work.” – Myles Oxenford

Louisa Taylor Crocus Nest of Three Bowls

Louisa Taylor’s Crocus Nest of Three Bowls – £350

Conceptually, Louisa’s hand-thrown porcelain vessels draw on museum collections of 18th-century tableware, her modern forms and subtle glazes playing off their antique hand-painted brushwork and dimensions.

As well as form and function, Taylor is especially interested in colour permutation. During her MA studies at the Royal College of Art, she developed a keen interest in coloured stoneware glazes. This started a vast research project that has produced more than 1,000 recipes for new glazes and surface finishes. As a result, she consults as a freelance designer to leading companies in the industry.

“The subtle colour palette of the range is directly influenced by hand painted decoration on historical tureens and grand vessels. I deconstruct each individual colour and match it with glaze. I use the content of the decoration to inform the overall composition of the piece; for example the height of the vessel correlates to the proportion of the colour in the pattern. The intention is to create works that as a whole describe the pattern from where they derived.” – Louisa Taylor

A view of Richard Tuff’s work within ‘Masters of Colour’ 

Richard Tuff’s paintings have a unique almost child like charm to them. The colours are rich and strong with many subtle changes of light and tone capturing so well on paper the Cornish harbours and towns. He carefully studies the subject matter to be painted and then captures the essence and the feeling of a place, often disregarding the natural order of things.

”I have sought to emphasise the tranquillity of this area with a palette of cool blues and greens, using the gentlest and most harmonious tones to express this sense” – Richard Tuff 

 

Paul Jackson’s ceramics in our window display 

Paul Jackson decorates his ceramics in a painterly fashion giving each piece a unique and individual character. He starts by hand throwing them on a wheel and often uses white earthenware clay to freely sculpt each ceramic. More recently he has been working with local stoneware and porcelain in a salt glaze kiln, referencing his inspiration from the Cornish landscape.

This show is a must see so don’t miss it.

Great Pottery Throwdown praise for Penzance-based potter

Wild Cornwall Pots by Catherine Lucktaylor 

BBC Two’s Great Pottery Throwndown came back to our screens in February after a hugely successful first series, attracting over 2 million viewers each week. The show, which many are describing as The Great British Bake Off meets clay, sees ten amateur potters compete to become Top Potter with a number of challenges that range from garden sculpture to a 12-piece porcelain tea set. The third episode of the new series focused on the art of Japenese style ceramics and featured the work of Penzance-based potter Catherine Lucktaylor as a perfect example of how to master the dramatic process of raku-firing.

Raku-firing involves taking pots while they are still glowing red from the kiln and placing them immediately into containers filled with combustible materials. The materials ignite and the containers are closed, producing an intense reduction atmosphere which effects the colours in glazes and clay as well as creating a distinctive cracking due to the drastic thermal shock. The pots are then plunged into cold water to halt the firing process.

Catherine Lucktaylor‘s ‘Wild Cornwall’ series of pots uses the Raku process to create an expressive and colourful finish, reminiscent of flower filled clifftops and swirling seas. Catherine was sought out for the program that showed judge and master potter Keith Brymer Jones holding her pot up from the group of examples to completely focus on her stand-out decoration.

Catherine has been making and experimenting with Raku for over 25 years and was lucky enough to be taught by two well known and respected authorities on Raku during her two-year foundation at Huddersfield Polytechnic and at Wolverhampton Polytechnic as part of her BA Hons in Ceramics. After this she moved to Cardiff and then Brighton, continuing to explore kiln building and Raku, sawdust and pit firings. In 1999, Catherine received a travelling Fellowship from the Winston Churchill Memorial Trust and travelled to West Africa and Brazil, creating mixed media sculptural installations as she explored her mixed British-Ghanaian heritage. It was the birth of her son, Leon, in 2007 and another move, to West Cornwall, that led her back to her first love of ceramics. Catherine now specialises in hand built Raku-fired ceramics inspired by the Cornish landscape, which she creates in her large studio near Penzance.

Her work has been exhibited in galleries across the UK, including the Beside The Wave galleries who are celebrating Catherine’s Great Pottery Throwdown feature with a show focusing on her ceramics in their gallery in Falmouth (10th – 30th March). The collection will include brand new work from Catherine’s ‘Wild Cornwall’ series, allowing fans of the show to see Catherine’s textured and bright finishes first hand.We also have another collection of Cornish Mist Pots by Catherine on our website.

For those wishing to find out even more about the process, Catherine runs Raku course and master classes from her studio, details of which can be found on her website.