Jonathan Wade
My background is in ceramics, and a driving force behind my work is to investigate the expression of qualities that are specific and unique to ceramic – material qualities of clays in differing physical states, control and expression in making, and interaction between a clay ‘body’ and surface. Alongside form, scale, presentation and association, the surface of an object is important as the point of interaction.
To use ceramics as my primary means of expression has unavoidably led me to consider the relative permanence or impermanence of materials, and further to this, the longevity and history of ceramic objects.
Use of ‘alchemical’ processes that turn clay into ceramic through the application of heat, altering chemical and crystalline structures of material that has itself undergone transformations measured in vast geological timescales, influences my thinking and making.
