Five Minutes with... Stephen Bowers
We caught up with artist Stephen Bowers at his home studio in Norwood ahead of his Collect show, aptly titled Norwood.
Photos by Vanessa Heath
Can you tell us something about the title of this exhibition?
We do not have to go far to discover the significance. I live in Norwood. Works in the show were made in Norwood, and the majority of works feature foliage derived (mostly) from local street trees with the inscription ‘Norwood’ on the base. It celebrates the local.
As well as works in your recognized style, the ‘Norwood’ pieces in this exhibition represent a distinct new approach. Is this the first time you have presented them for exhibition?
These works have never been shown before. My exhibitions at Robin Gibson Gallery in Sydney, The Scottish Gallery in Edinburgh, in Flora at the Chattagua Art Institute in New York State and at the Frick Museum in Pittsburgh all referenced aspects of botany, but this exhibition specifically presents new designs inspired by local trees which, as part of Adelaide’s urban heritage, tend to be taken for granted, complained about or simply erased during urban in-fill.
Australian gum-blossoms are a classic cliché, yet when you look closer there is something really quite outré and distinctive about them. Even their name is interesting. I could be accused of being someone who ‘over decorates’ - and I like the idea that eucalyptus actually means ‘well covered’. In 1777, on Cook's third expedition, the botanist David Nelson collected a eucalypt on Bruny Island, southern Tasmania. This specimen was taken to the British Museum in London, where it was named Eucalyptus obliqua by the French botanist, Charles-Louis L'Héritier, who was working in London at the time. He coined the Eucalyptus part of that generic name from the Greek roots eu and calyptos, meaning 'well' and 'covered', in reference to the operculum of the flower bud - the distinctive ‘gum-nut’ that protects the flowers during their development and sheds under pressure from the emerging stamens. Go May Gibbs!
Australian gum-blossoms are a classic cliché, yet when you look closer there is something really quite outré and distinctive about them... I could be accused
of being someone who ‘over decorates’ - and I like the idea that eucalyptus
actually means ‘well covered’.
Your works are grounded in pottery technique and informed by research. What are the techniques and influences at work here?
Apart from the obvious impact of natural history and botanical illustration, the major strand of influence at play in this body of work are the paper-cuts of the marvelous 18th century artist Mary Delany (1700 – 1788) and there is a deliberate echo of her dramatic black-background technique. You might also spot the influence of Rosa Fiveash and R.T Baker. Sadly for us all, depiction of bush flora against a carbonised background also has other connotations.
How do you achieve the clarity and definition of your decoration?
Technically this is achieved by working with a light colored clay body, applying images and decoration by hand and finishing the work by glaze firing to about 1170 degrees Celsius. Painting and decorating on pots is an odd business. You get to use all sorts of arcane mixtures of metals, fluxes and oxides and slash away with purposeful looking brushes with minute tips and fool around with other tools. Images are necessarily altered as they transpose onto curved 3D form, continually micro-adjusted as composition wraps and morphs around the pot. In addition to this strange process the decoration then suffers scorching abuse in the kiln, for once all the painstaking decoration has been completed, you then chuck it into the fire!
I make a type of pottery widely known as ‘earthenware’ with decoration covered by a clear glaze. This glaze, like the glaze often found on traditional Staffordshire and other earthenware, may, across time, develop a ‘crazed’ appearance, where the surface layer of glaze exhibits a series of fine cracks. Continuously developing across the years, this is a natural characteristic of earthenware and is often looked for in antique pieces as indicators of their age and authenticity. Tip: avoid directly filling earthenware with boiling water – let it come-off-the-boil before you make your brew – it is better for the tea too!
Pottery requires care, patience and the learning of skill and technique – all a bit infra-dig these days where it’s more about immediacy, sensation, impact and gratification.
What attracts you to work in clay?
To craft and work in clay is personally rewarding. It is a slow, protean, elemental medium, speaking as it does of earth, water and fire. Pottery requires care, patience and the learning of skill and technique – all a bit infra-dig these days where it’s more about immediacy, sensation, impact and gratification. As well as encouraging aesthetic witnessing and meditation on relationships to materials and traditions, pottery can be zero-waste as unfired clay can be continuously re-cycled until all used up (some would say a bit like themes and concepts in contemporary culture).
What impact has your relationship with JamFactory had on your work?
JamFactory is simply a terrific community resource. At its best it acts as a creative engine house, a big experimental craft studio where artists from a range of media come to together to learn skills, explore materials and techniques, develop ideas and discover and forge their individual ‘voice’. Over the years I have had opportunity to work in proximity with some terrific Adelaide makers including Robin Best, Kirsten Coelho, Philip Hart, Bronwyn Kemp, Stephanie Livesey, Bruce Nuske, Jeff Mincham, Mark Thompson, Andrew Stock and Gerry Wedd (amongst others).
Collaboration is a part of what I do and for nearly 40 years I have worked with Mark Heidenreich of Terravilla Pottery near the Adelaide Central Markets. He makes pots for me which I then decorate. For this exhibition we specifically chose to work together to create the batch of Norwood mugs.
Stephen Bowers was the recipient of the 2014 Churchill Fellowship presented by the Winston Churchill Trust .
Bowers used his fellowship to research specialist collections of historical blue and white ceramics in the USA, UK and Netherlands to gain new understanding, inspiration and skills.
Collect: Norwood is now showing at JamFactory, Adelaide in retail until 30 March 2020.
Shop a selection of the Collect: Norwood exhibition online.