Linda Styles Technical Statement

My work has evolved over the course of my ceramic practice which started in 1990,but has always maintained certain 'trademark' features. It has continuued to be pushed to the very limits of endurance/existance,I obscure and reveal the surface and form in order to achieve a tension of opposites. My use of multi firing and multi layering began at the inception of my career, my repetoire being a combination of reactive/inactive porcelain slips, fritted slips, my own glaze formula’s and commercial low fire glazes and lustre's. The clay is cut semi-randomly freehand from soft slabs that are placed on a variety of hump moulds to which I add angled sheets of clay, which are then stressed, torn, stamped, slit and re-assembled. My marks are not meant to be literal interpretation, and are perhaps best described as organic abstract in notion and intent.My surfaces are now more to do with colour, line and space, although still always underpinned by emotions ranging from angst and despair to joyous optimism, depending on my mood. Reference to figuration and narrative are always present. Ceramic process, has throughout history/prehistory, carried the potential for expressive visual surface, using heat works and chemical formula’s to achieve the brilliance and richness of vitrified,fused glass surface that is uniquely associated with this special art/craft medium. I like to think that I am providing my marketplace with nifty little post-modern interpretations of domestic ornament for the home. The preparation of form and surface is surprisingly complex considering that simplicity is the goal. Of late I have become immersed in the exploration of the sometimes alarming dichotomy between surface and form. Always prone to excess, I manipulate to the point of collapse and then rebuild adding more and more surface detail with each firing, a complex and forever challenging process that I am immersed in. I use a white porcelain/dense, saturating black and coloured ground slip which is poured on when the form is leather hard, to achieve a luminous/saturated canvas on which to place my chosen palette of colour. Large brushes loaded with corresponding; sometimes clashing coloured slips are then dragged across the base coat in random stripes and circles. I then flick, splash and draw through these layers, quick line drawings that expose and respond to what lies beneath and goes before. The ‘marks’ are not meant to be a literal interpretation, and are perhaps best described as organic abstract in notion and intent.My surfaces are now more to do with colour, line and space as opposed to angst and despair, although reference to figuration and narrative are always present. I rub additional oxides and pigments into the surface before bisque firing to 1000’c after which they are usually glazed on the interior surface as I want to encourage usage. I then fire to 1120’c.The exterior surface is purposely contrasted between matte and gloss. Stone like and tactile in nature, onto which I place, in selected areas, bright, often gaudy, synthetic looking colour and fire again to 1000’ c, the final firing being taken to 747’c, for the precious metals and lustre's that are used to highlight ‘handles’ and to detail small areas, hopefully suggesting hideous preciousness and gorgeousness.