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Robert Cooper

Robert Cooper

Ceramicist

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Archive

Archive

CandlesticksNarrativePlatter/TilesCollaged VesselsTrophiesCast ToysEarly work

Candletsicks are made from eclectic pieces of Victorian detritus – clinker, cup-handles, teapot lids, gilded spouts, etc – found on the south bank of the Medway Estuary.

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Candlestick 2020
Candlestick 2020
Candlestick 2020
Candlestick 2020
Candlestick 2020
Candlesticks 2019
Candlestick 2019
Candlesticks 2019
Candlestick 'Moorish' 2019
Candlestick 'Glassy' 2019
Candlestick 'Terrazo' 2019
Candlestick 'Tripod' 2019
Candlestick 'Greyhound' 2019
Candlestick 'Mostly Green' 2019
Candlestick 'Piping' 2019
Candlestick 'Squiggle' 2019
Candlestick 'Waiting Figure' 2019
Candlestick 'So Easy to Forget' 2019
Candlesticks x 4, 2018
Candelesticks x 3, 2018
Candlesticks, studio display, 2018
Candlerstick
candlestick
candlesticks
candlesticks

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Narrative

A theme which is about the survival of memories, become memento mori, the present way of the world compressed into a small statement but pressing and powerful.

'Hare's Breath', 2011
'Bird of Passage', 2011
'Badgered', 2011
'Otter by Far', 2011

Platter/Tiles

Tiles discarded, unused, given a life of function with recycled slips and glazes and slumped in the kiln at high temperature.

Platter/Tile
Platter/Tile
Platter/Tile
Platter/Tile

Collaged Vessels

When creating large forms I employ a collage approach, fusing together components of broken, unfired clay recycled from previous unfinished pieces.

'Ochra'
Craft Council Collection
'Dark Figure'
'Americana'

Trophies

An exhibition at the Contemporary Applied Arts entitled TEA’s UP gave an opportunity to link ideas of the triumph of the new, a throwaway paper cup or the old memory filled tea cup, and a personal collection of the saved, thrown away and recovered.

Trophy
Trophy
Trophy
Trophy
Trophies

Cast Toys

Our grandchildren went through soft toys at a pace. I began to see their kind in charity shops and used them in liquid clay to create a more permanent life story. Fixing them with firing and glaze in the Kiln.

Cast toy
Cast toy
Cast toy
Cast toy
Cast toy
Cast toy
Cast toy
Cast toy

A Selection of Early Work

Here is a selection of work from my main areas of interest over the past 30 years. I am fascinated by surfaces; their colour, texture and narrative possibilities.

The vessel, its interior and containment, are important to me. Hand building is my preferred way of working. Using the clay in different states, sloppy, plastic or dry, contributes to the process and final result.

Archaeology was an early interest; building model Saxon halls in the garden and ‘digging Egyptian tombs’, filling them with clay artefacts.

At the College I moved from design to clay. If I’d known I could make a living from potting I would have started earlier!

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Scan-05_bup

 

‘Tower of Babel’, at m2(at)15, May 2018

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