Fire & Clay 2019

Auckland Studio Potters: Fire & Clay 2019 showcases and awards the outstanding pottery and ceramics of members from the Auckland Studio Potters (ASP). Our selector this year is Dunedin artist Jim Cooper. There will also be a display of work by Jim Cooper as our guest artist.

This annual exhibition celebrates excellence in ceramic practice and demonstrates both the depth and breadth of experience of ASP members, who range from senior practitioners to impassioned amateurs, as well as students studying in craft, design or fine arts programmes.

The work on show includes functional ware and sculptural pieces, and encompasses a wide variety of making, glazing, and firing techniques.

Jim coopers work is primarily installation based. In the past his work has been concerned with what he perceived to be that peak of social political and artistic regeneration the late sixties. It is evident in his work that the tactile nature of the material is elemental to his process and it is important that the work relays the making, he confesses to a child-like fascination with apparent sticky surfaces.

Jim hasn't shown for 2 years he considered this a time of experimentation “I needed to slop about in the studio without the inclusion of those external voices or restrictive deadlines”.

This work is an outtake from the ‘Yea well, now since then’ Objectspace show, his first show after his time out.