Alex Paton’s Artist Statement
My utilitarian ceramic vessels represent a moment in time; a memory of materiality, morphology and place. These memories drive connection to our everyday lives and give meaning to our rituals of sustenance. The works contain within them a synthesis of my evolving relationship with clay; of constant scientific inquiry and material exploration. They display the forces I have put into the clay, but they also possess an inherent material life beyond the control of my touch. They are never truly finished, but simply undergo rapid periods of observable metamorphosis. Today, the pots may be a product of my hands and mind, but soon, they too will be weathered, broken and quietly cast away. Even when the evidence of human touch may be completely erased, the materiality of the clay will still live on.
My work revolves around the medium of clay and its transformation. I make functional, atmospherically fired ceramic wares which are often angular, geometric and clearly constructed. My recent formal exploration is largely focused on pouring pots as a means of expressing physical tensions between strength and fragility; between the built and natural world. I use native clays with coarse aggregates to evoke a geologic history of the material. Unfiltered inclusions of feldspar and silica break up flat, architectural planes to emphasize the crude physicality of the clay.
I have found the clearest expression firing my work in long format wood firings, where pots are subjected to extended periods of heat and a volatile reduction atmosphere. The path of the flame and conditions of alteration are captured on the pots in icy flows of natural ash glaze and richly flashed orange, brown and red clay facies to create a dynamic relationship between surface and structure. These pots then serve as a collaboration between maker, natural materials and process, each equally implicit in the final works. In providing agency to the clay and to the firing, I seek to reflect on the ephemeral qualities of humanity, and its cultivation of the natural world.
My forms speak of modernity and of the built environment. They reference artists like Constantine Brâncuși, Giorgio Morandi, and Duilio Barnabe in their assemblages of spatial relationships. My pots present sharp, oversized spouts alongside soft swooping handles, ever delicate appendages affixed to hefty structural bodies. My pots borrow formal elements from discarded industrial goods and domestic “junk”, which clutters roadside shops throughout North America. This societal refuse speaks to ritual and sustenance, but also to the temporal fragility of domesticity and of our objects. My forms too seek to elicit this utilitarian fragility; to maintain a commentary on domestic consumption by referencing, in a contrived and delicate manor, the abandoned and decayed products of our past.