In this research point, the aim was to look at a range of artists and illustrators who have used ceramics as a surface for their image making.
Pollyanna Johnson
Pollyanna Johnson is a painter from East Sussex who hand paints onto ceramics. Her themes stem from an interest in 16th and 17th century ceramics and her own experiences as a female artist in what’s sometimes regarded in certain areas as a male dominated field. Her often whimsical takes on classically themed portraits have an underlying feminist message which is presented in a wryly mocking and quite subtly clever way. I particularly like the vintage feel to this piece pictured here.
Grayson Perry
Multi-disciplined artist Grayson Perry’s ceramics are quirky and feature mixtures of line art, collage and what appears to be decoupage, often including pop iconography, social commentary and art critique, along with auto-biographical sketches featuring his cross dressing alter ego Claire. His work is instantly recognizable and he has a very signature style.
Jayne Seymour
Jayne Seymour is a ceramics artist originally from Suffolk but now residing in Country Clare in Ireland. her work features figurative work and studies of crows which are a particular fascination. She creates each study directly onto unfired clay then adds shades gradually using oxides to build up the final results.
Jane Cox
The work of Jane Cox is inspired by nature and landscapes. Her work features interesting abstract motifs with random shifted repeats, often with strong negative spaces. Some of her coloured pieces have an oddly vintage or Nouveau feel to them and these blue and green examples have interesting monochromatic colour palettes. The surface patterns are created using paper resists.
Conclusion
I came across quite a few different ceramics based artists in the course of this research task, the breath of pattern and design is extremely varied, a great many apply abstract designs and patterns but conversely many apply illustrative designs too so there’s a something to cover the whole gamut of surface patterns. The range of motifs also varies quite widely, which I concluded is in many cases driven by what inspires an individual artist as with most fields of art. A large proportion of the less abstract artists are inspired by nature, location, cultures, along with animal and human anatomical studies.
I would hazard a guess and say that the visual language on many ceramics surfaces (practical ones here, such as utensils and / or containers) is iconic, which is perhaps where more abstract patterns lend themselves, although this of course isn’t an exclusive reserve as there are also many examples of figurative and more representational work such as that of Grayson Perry or Jayne Seymour.
I’ll be the first to admit that ceramics isn’t an area of art I’ve really ever investigated before : well not modern ceramics at any rate, so it’s been interesting to see what’s out there.
Image references:
https://www.pollyannajohnson.com/
https://www.royalacademy.org.uk/art-artists/name/grayson-perry-ra
OCA Illustration 2: Responding to a brief 