‘The role of the artist in society is, biologically speaking’ that of nourishment.
It is as a provider of food’.
Diego Riviera

As a maker, this perspective on the role of the artist by Diego Riviera inspires me. What I make can best be described as a series of developing collections, an evolution, as crafting itself is.

I see crafting as a sacred practice, one that sits at the core of who are as human beings.

[This Earthly Code]

A series of pieces that blend digital iconography with ancient tradition. These are pots and bowls inspired by the ground from which they come in Cornwall, where the clay has been dug up for centuries to make ceramics. [This Earthly Code] symbolises the enduring, vital connection to raw and primal elemental materials as digital commands imprint themselves on our behaviours and our lives.

The question of whether digital materials will endure in the way ceramics do is unanswered. These are ceramics intended to build awareness about what we are choosing to become as digitised humans. They are an encouragement to be mindful of what we are overprinting onto human civilisation and to stay true to our origins by synthesising human capabilities of the past, present and future. 

The colours and characteristics of these pieces are inspired the salts and minerals of the earth and the sea. The series includes ‘Start’ vases, ‘Home’ bowls, ‘Geotag’ vases and bowls, ‘Gears’ capsule pots, ‘Download’ and ‘Sharing’ bowls. Each piece within the collection is different.

[Alter Pieces]

A constant interest of mine is the pursuit of balance, expressed in [Alter Piece] figures.

[Alter Pieces] take the form of an abstract human shape that’s genderless, raceless, ageless, universal. They’re contemporary, intentional totems and symbolic portraits. 'Alter' stands for 'alternative', 'altered perception'. These pieces muse on ideas of religion, worship and assimilation.

The chapter of human history we’re living in is the one in which we’re beginning to co-exist alongside code. This is an epochal moment, a step-change in the development of human civilisation and one in which we might question the role humans will play that I want to mark with these pieces.

I think a renaissance exists for us, somewhere, within the interface between human and digital design.

AlterPieces are made using a fusion of digital technology and human craft throughout the process I use to create them. The idea is to explore who we are becoming or might become in the digital world. As ceramic pieces, they are statements in time, built to last in a way the virtual world is not. They are tangible representations of the intangible, referring to states of existence in the digital world that are increasingly a fundamental part of all our lives.

Hold them in your hand, and an Alter Piece will feel like a tool, inspired by a flint from ancient days. They can be grasped like a torch. They have the soft shoulders of a child. Esentially they are reflections of the personal and cultural dimensions of life in the digital age, pieces designed to be reflective and simple. 

[Keep Taking The Tablets]

Years ago, early civilisations were using hieroglyphics just as we do with digital icons and emojis today.

In some ways, human initiative hasn't changed much, the more things change the more we can see constants within the lust for progress. These framed pieces take a perspective across millennia, they are about making things of lasting meaning with our hands...and with the tablets we hold in them.

[Augmented]

Recent work has focused on taking traditional materials and augmenting them. They deliberately employ random, uplanned, primitive touches together with digital elements as early artefacts of ‘built to last’ digital civilisation.