Among artists, ceramicists have perhaps the most intimate connection with their material. Every touch of their fingers is recorded on the clay as it turns on a wheel; one mistake during firing and their work is ruined. But Irish artist Jack Doherty relishes the process’ unpredictability.
“It’s about reducing what I do to the simplest thing. It’s a combination of each thing that leads to the results,” said Doherty. “The throwing will leave marks, the firing will leave behind its mark.”
Pure Simplicity, an exhibition of Doherty’s work, opened yesterday at the National Taipei University of Education (國立臺北教育大學) and will run through Saturday.
Photos courtesy of The Steven Leach Group
Doherty is the director of Leach Pottery in St Ives, Cornwall, England, which was founded in 1920 by Bernard Leach, considered one of the most influential ceramicists of the 20th century. Leach grew up in Hong Kong and eventually settled in Japan, where his grandparents were missionaries. There he first encountered the work of Ogata Kenzan, considered Japan’s most important potter. Later he moved to England, accompanied by Japanese ceramicist Shoji Hamada, and founded Leach Pottery. In addition to Leach’s ceramic art, Leach Pottery became famous for its “standard ware,” or dishware meant for everyday use that features Leach’s signature organic textures, earth tones and simple, graceful silhouettes inspired by Japanese pottery and aesthetic traditions.
Leach was also influenced by the tenets of the Arts and Crafts Movement.
“William Morris was a big inspiration to Leach,” said Doherty. “He was reacting against what was happening with the industrial revolution at that point and how he felt individual people were being destroyed by the increase in industry.”
Photo courtesy of The Steven Leach Group
National Taipei University of Education arts professor Lo Sunhat (羅森豪), who helped organize the exhibit, says he was influenced by Leach’s pottery as a young ceramics student and excited to see Doherty’s work.
“I consider him Leach’s creative heir,” said Lo.
While Doherty shies away from the comparison, his own pottery also emphasizes a deep involvement with and understanding of his material. Deceptively simple at first glance, the complexity of Doherty’s ceramics reveals itself upon closer inspection. Most of his work is made from porcelain, and as Doherty throws each piece on a potter’s wheel, he uses found items like cookie cutters and broken sword blades, as well as his hands, to mark the surface. The work is finished with soda glazing and years of experimentation have resulted in the unique colors that are one of Doherty’s aesthetic signatures. Warm beiges and earth tones shift into verdigris green and turquoise, which glow on top of the porcelain’s white surface. Textures range from smooth to rough and sandy.
Photo courtesy of The Steven Leach Group
Doherty began using soda glazing in lieu of conventional glazes because the latter result in a glassy surface that he feels undermines the tactile nature of his pottery.
The variations in color and texture depend on how sodium vapors introduced into the kiln at semi-regular intervals hit the pottery during the firing process. The results are never predictable.
“I love trial and error. I love working with instinct,” said Doherty.
Photo courtesy of The Steven Leach Group
He cites modernist potters Lucie Rie and Hans Coper as inspirations. As an art student in Belfast, Doherty originally planned to become a painter. After switching his concentration to pottery, Doherty struggled to connect with his new medium until visiting Rie’s studio in London, where the Austrian potter had displayed some of Leach and Hamada’s work in addition to her own pieces.
“I thought, there is something about pottery that interests me, but I don’t know what it is. It took me a long time to discover what it is,” said Doherty.
He remembers an artistic breakthrough, the first piece he created that wasn’t directly influenced by another ceramicist’s work. It was a pot with a dark, undulating stroke across it that resembled Chinese calligraphy. Doherty had discovered a way of throwing clay against a turning wheel that created an “energetic, dynamic mark” that evoked Chinese calligraphy without attempting to copy it.
Photo courtesy of The Steven Leach Group
“That was the very start of my real interest in developing my own sort of work,” said Doherty, whose creative mantra is “just make the pots that you want to make.”
At Leach Pottery, Doherty works with four young potters. In addition to producing Leach standard ware, the sales of which support the pottery, the potters are urged to develop their own artistic style and techniques — and to get away from their wheels and kilns.
“I encourage them to get away from pottery and go outside, go to cities, go to London, go wherever, but connect with people beyond pottery,” said Doherty. “Every potter is a specialist and they need to connect with something outside.”
Photo courtesy of The Steven Leach Group
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