Hon. President:- Joe Finch

Hon. Member:- Henry Sandon

Bradley Spencer

Click here to return to list of members

My work starts with drawing, through the physical act comes a greater understanding of what I have been looking at and it becomes part of me. Architectural features, be they quietly decaying Doric columns or Victorian moulded terracotta, have always been a fascination for me. I love the detail of the work (the way this is contrasted with the broad sweep of unmoulded often sheer surfaces) and the tonal sculpture that light and shadow play in this decoration.  The completed surfaces of my work are the product of my desire to unite the conceptual intention with the physical knowledge and understanding gained initially through drawing. Sources may well not be obviously figurative once the work is complete as I work through first hand study, making observed drawings later developing them deliberately using memory rather than the actual subject. This is vital to build that distinguishing difference between the source and what one wants to make of it. I understand my work more closely in reference to a fine art and sculptural articulation than to studio pottery.

 

The actual making, rolling out, joining slabs and decorating these new surfaces is a reflexive stage in the creation of a piece or series of pieces. Intaglio, silk screen and relief processes are equally as important as clay is to me. When I print onto and into surfaces I am always aware of my choices of surface and the clay body is no less a part of this selection process. The actual forms I make with clay are in combination responses to the clay, the studies made of buildings, memories and spaces.

 

The work is made with a variety of stoneware bodies and is biscuit fired to 1040C and subsequently fired to either 1180C or1260C in an electric kiln.

 

Exhibition work

 

Craft Gallery, Royal Birmingham Society of Arts – January - March 2010

Associates and Members Open, Royal Birmingham Society of Arts – October 2009

MA Show , Wolverhampton University - September 2009

 

                                                                          Photographs by Alex Ridgway.