Barbara Gittings
Barbara is a Brighton-based ceramicist, exhibiting across England. During her earlier career in the fashion industry as a designer and pattern cutter, she began to explore clay as an alternative medium to fabric. In fashion, the layering of textiles and the power of the cut merge to find new balances and forms, the biomorphic and geometric held in tension. Her work in clay continues to explore this. Barbara is fascinated by the geometry in nature. Growth and random chaotic forces skew and distort the initial perfect symmetry, leading to biomorphic and irregular forms.
”My ceramics explore the multi-layered effects nature creates via the laying down of strata, weathering and erosion. I endeavour to catch echoes of all this in my work whilst trying to embrace chance, the accidental and, as Henri Bergson said, the unforeseeable novelty.”
“I work with a grogged porcelain, using Nerikomi techniques. This involves adding oxides or stains to the clay to colour it and then joining, slicing and rejoining layers of colours to build up patterns through the clay. I then slab-build the pieces. After sanding and biscuit firing to 1046 degrees, the pieces are re-sanded and then further decorated, using various resists. They are then smoke-fired and polished.”
-Barbara Gittings
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