New American Scenery printed ceramics by Paul Scott
Paul Scott is internationally known for his provocative ceramics that highlight political and cultural issues. Familiar designs associated with traditional domestic tableware are subversively manipulated to comment on our life and times. The exhibition includes exciting new work inspired by the blue and white ‘American’ transferware-printed earthenware that was made in Staffordshire during the 19th century and decorated with celebratory views of the emergent American republic.
Many of the pieces on display have resulted from periods of travel and research in the USA, where Paul’s activities were, in his words, ‘driven by issues and institutions as much as a desire to experience particular landscapes.’ He studied examples of American transferware in museum collections and visited many of the locations depicted, subsequently producing up-dated views that reflect current events as well as historical, environmental and social change. These ceramics have often involved a high degree of technical wizardry, whereby visual motifs are magically altered and meanings are transformed. The exhibition marks 20 years since Paul Scott first showed his work in the Ceramics Gallery at Aberystwyth Arts Centre.
Research in the USA supported by the Alturas Foundation.
Research in the archives at Wedgwood, Spode and the Victoria and Albert Museum, London, supported by Arts Council England.
Images
Main Image: Cumbrian Blue(s), New American Scenery, Residual Waste (Texas) No: 4
Thumbnail: Cumbrian Blue(s), New American Scenery, Souvenir of Portland' No:5
