I wrote this earlier in the year for Ceramica. I think my ideas about what I am trying to do change pretty fast, but this is a fairly current version
I make slip decorated earthenware from a studio just outside Oxford that I share with Ceramicist Jane Bowen. I have been here about 25 years or so, working with the same basic materials, closely related to those used in traditional Slipware: 3 slips, black, white and green and 2 glazes, a clear and a honey. I use a standard red terracotta clay, sometimes grogged, for all the throwing and hand building. I make a small range of ever changing and mutating shapes, platters, bowls, and some more sculptural pieces. I am struck by how slowly the shapes and decoration evolve and yet the making and decorating processes seem really fast, dynamic and full of action.
I think what really fascinates and obsesses me is how the creative process unfolds in real time – the moments when the inherent properties of the materials, the malleability of the clay and the fluidity of the slip intersect with my tangled collection of ideas, influences and intentions. This meeting often generates the beginnings of something new, something to be followed into the unknown.
While many of my pieces revolve around recurring motifs, within every repetition there is potential for discovery, even in a small way. The work evolves, shaped by the ongoing dialogue between control and spontaneity. In more practical terms, when wet layers of slip combine, fired from a slip trailer that hovers above the surface with an angle and velocity that is ever changing, every mark is different. This combines with my intent, almost my mood. The way I use clay is similar. I try, even with shapes I have made many times to follow new routes, no matter how small, and to let things be if something good emerges. There is control and purpose but also I want there to be an element that may surprise me, for good or bad.
I have always produced a lot of work. I was fairly sure that through constant making and forward motion I would avoid what I saw as overworking and this would overcome any preciousness. I wanted to avoid loading significance onto things in the belief that this would make the work more spontaneous and less self-conscious. I am not so convinced that I was right; some pieces I now revisit many times, adjusting, re-shaping and attacking until I see what I want, or by some physical attack the clay and I arrive somewhere new and exciting. I think after working for a long time I try and avoid setting out any rules for myself. I aim to do whatever is necessary to make something work or to give it a chance to work.
I grew up at Shebbear Pottery in North Devon. My father, Clive Bowen, still lives and works there. He has been making functional slip decorated earthenware for more than 50 years, using a large wood fired kiln he built. On my mother Alison’s side of the family, there are many potters: my great-grandfather, grandfather, uncles and cousins. Clay is in the blood. I did try to avoid the family business but found myself working as an apprentice to Clive before heading to Camberwell School of Art to study Ceramics where I had the privilege of learning from tutors such as Richard Slee, Gillian Lowndes, Colin Pearson and Carol McNicol, to name a few. Opportunities I didn’t fully appreciate at the time.
I wandered around for a good few years after, attempting to find the right path to take until a few chance marks, wet on wet slip seemed to open a door for me. It was very simple but something changed and I had a beginning. I think this ties to my need to constantly make; I feel like a late starter and there is a lot to do. I don’t always know what, but it’s out there. Even now, writing, half of me is in the studio in front of a fresh piece of clay. What is going to come next?
The compulsion to return to this process, to engage in a collaboration with the materials is what drives me. In the end the finished piece feels almost incidental, a by-product of something more compelling: the act of making itself.
Selected Exhibitions
2025
These Gentle Lands. (Group). Cambridge Contemporary. Cambridge.
2024
Kinetic Clay (solo). Contemporary Ceramics Centre. London
Colour and Movement. (Group). Leach Pottery St Ives.
2023
Slipware: Sources of Inspiration. (Group). Sewell Centre Gallery. Abingdon.
2022
Earthenware Exhibition. (Group). Clay College. Stoke.
- Slipware Oxford Ceramics Gallery at Fen Ditton Gallery, Cambridge.
2021
- The Slip Trail. The Clay loft, Stroud.
2019
- Slipware. Association les ceramistes du Bois Dernier Les Communs. Cormatin France (July)
- Slipped. Contemporary Ceramics Centre. London (July)
- A Melodic Line. Twenty Twenty Gallery, Ludlow
2018
- Heavenly Bodies Joanna Bird Gallery, London
- Pyramid Gallery, York
- Gallery Friedrike Ziet, Deidesheim.
2017
- Slipware. Gallery St Ives Tokyo
- Painted Clay. Keramiekcentrum Tiendschuur Tegelen
2016
- Slipware. Cliousclat, France
- Slipware. Gallery St Ives Tokyo
- Red Barn Gallery, Penrith
2015
- Ceramic Art London, 17th – 19th April
- New Craftsman Gallery, St Ives, 28th March – 20th April
2014
- Clive and Dylan Bowen. The Oxford Ceramics Gallery
- Slipware. Gallery Top
2013
- Collect. Saatchi Gallery
- Ceramics Now. Contemporary Ceramics Centre, London
2012
- Scottish Gallery, Edinburgh
- Ceramic Art, London
2011
- Bowen and Bowen. Contemporary Ceramic Centre, London
- Slip. Ruthin Craft Centre
2010
2009
- Slipware. Leach Pottery, St Ives
- Ceramic Art. London
2008
- Painted. Contemporary Ceramic Centre
- Harrow School.
2007
- Ceramic Art, London
- Wolfson College, Oxford
2006
- 3 Potters, Galerie Besson
Career Background
1991
1998
- Set up studio in Oxford with Jane Bowen
2002
- moved to present studio in Tackley