New American Scenery: Printed Ceramics by Paul Scott at Aberystwyth, UK

Aberystwyth Arts Centre | Aberystwyth, UK July 9, 2022 – September 25, 2022
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.

PROGRAMMING & EVENTS


English, b. 1953, Darley Dale, Derbyshire, England
lives and works in Cumbria, UK

Paul Scott is a Cumbrian-based artist with a diverse practice and an international reputation. Creating individual pieces that blur the boundaries between fine art, craft and design, he is well known for research into printed vitreous surfaces, as well as his characteristic blue and white artworks in glazed ceramic.

Scott’s artworks can be found in public collections around the globe – including The National Museum of Art, Architecture and Design Norway, the Victoria and Albert Museum London, National Museums Liverpool, Carnegie Museum of Art, Pittsburgh and Brooklyn Art Museum USA. Commissioned work can be found in a number of UK museums as well as public places in the North of England, including Carlisle, Maryport, Gateshead and Newcastle Upon Tyne. He has also completed large-scale works in Hanoi, Vietnam and GuldagergĂ„rd public sculpture park in Denmark.

A combination of rigorous research, studio practice, curation, writing and commissioned work ensures that his work is continually developing. It is fundamentally concerned with the re-animation of familiar objects, landscape, pattern and a sense of place. He was Professor of Ceramics at Oslo National Academy of the Arts (KHiO) from 2011–2018. Scott received his Bachelors of Art Education and Design at Saint Martin’s College and Ph.d at the Manchester Institute for Research and Innovation in Art and Design in Manchester, England.

His current research project New American Scenery has been enabled by an Alturas Foundation artist award, Ferrin Contemporary, and funding from Arts Council England. More on New American Scenery, here.

ABOUT THE EXHIBITION LENDERS & SPONSORS


Aberystwyth Arts Centre was founded in the 1970s by the University College of Wales, Aberystwyth with the ambition to serve not just the College, but also the town and the surrounding counties. 

50 years on

The Arts Centre was built with the ambition of serving not only the College but also the town and surrounding area, acting as a bridge between “town and gown”. Thanks to this initial vision, today, 50 years later, we have become a thriving cultural hub, providing the communities of Mid Wales with access to the very best arts experiences, right on their doorstep.

INQUIRE


Additional works may be available to acquire, but not listed here.

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