"I connect with my dad through walking, he always takes the lead, foot by foot up the muddy tracks – I wonder if we see the same things?"

My practice is a material-based exploration of personal mythologies relating to place and landscape. My work serves as an encounter with the primordial and elemental nature of the ceramic process. All objects are formed using a unique combination of intuitive hand building techniques then I fire my work in the carbon-rich, reductive conditions of the gas kiln. From the dark material chaos of the kiln's atmosphere emerge unforeseen results and rich surfaces.

This project explores my familial connection to the Scottish landscape through a series of material investigations. I began by searching through my archive of photographs and written documents of my visits. From these documents I recorded stories and drawings from memory. Through this process I am able to access a more embodied experience of this distant yet familiar place. The forms and surfaces are emblematic of our walking and journey through the landscape. I have always been interested in how our experience of the land is a deeply subjective one – how our own personal mythologies become intertwined with the geological histories of these sites. I see this project as a way to latch onto these latent forms of knowledge.

‍

Skye, 2021  

reduction-fired ceramic, glaze, sand, rock

‍

Skye (detail), 2021  

reduction-fired ceramic, glaze, sand, rock

‍

My Old Man of Storr, 2021  

stoneware, glaze, rock  

265 x 290 mm

‍

My Old Man of Storr (detail), 2021  

stoneware, glaze, rock  

265 x 290 mm

‍

Shelter (from the wind), 2021  

porcelain, casting slip, sand  

150 x 305 mm

‍

Passage, 2021  

stoneware, rock, sand  

435 x 520 mm

‍

Passage (detail), 2021  

stoneware, rock, sand  

435 x 520 mm