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Richard Slee New Work
17 March to 22 April 2006
Richard Slee‘s ceramics celebrate things domestic and familiar. Brooms, coat hooks, top hats and souvenirs are all found among the objects represented in this exhibition.
Dense with ideas, his inventions can contain references to aspects of high or popular culture and make personal observations, as well as social or political comment.
Current themes include reflections on the worlds of magic tricks and DIY projects and result in works that are witty, ironical, satirical, surprising and sometimes sinister.
Slee sees clay as a medium that can be used to make almost anything and finds orthodox views of ceramic forms and techniques frustratingly limiting. In a spirit of
discovery he has recently returned to working on the wheel. Consciously avoiding the creation of traditional vessel forms, his experiments with thrown ceramic volumes
have led to surreal works such as ‘Chicken Legs’ and ‘Pig’.
He is also interested in the wider language of objects and materials. Some works are made in response to an existing object. Often purchased ‘finds’ (carefully selected,
yet commonplace things discovered in hardware and DIY stores) are incorporated in ambiguous ways, so as to enhance the character of the objects and their meanings.
Scale too is important and his representations of objects are frequently larger than one might expect. In an appreciation of Slee‘s work Grayson Perry remarks
‘These are not jaunty knick-knacks, they make me think about knick-knacks. The scaling up makes me feel they are metaphorically as well as literally looking down on the
traditions and conventions alluded to.’
Biographical notes
Born Cumbria, 1946, Richard Slee is one of the UK‘s leading ceramic artists. Recent solo exhibitions have included a major retrospective ‘Show 5: Richard Slee’ at the Crafts Council
Gallery, London & The Hub, Lincolnshire (2004), which was accompanied by a book published by Lund Humphries, and ‘Panorama’ shown at Tate St Ives, Ruthin Crafts Centre, Wales (2003)
and The Pier Arts Centre, Orkney, Scotland (2004).
Examples of his work can be found in public collections worldwide including the USA, Japan, Korea, Belgium, The Netherlands, Slovenia, Sweden as well as the UK. He was awarded
the Jerwood Prize for Applied Arts in 2001.
For a full biography see www.richardslee.com
Grayson Perry, ‘Richard Slee’. Exhibition essay for Barrett Marsden Gallery, 2000.
For more information, transparencies, or to arrange an interview with the artist please contact
Juliana Barrett
Tel: 020 7336 6396
Fax: 020 7336 6391
email: press@bmgallery.co.uk
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