Rob Barnard's extensive website of images and articles:

www.rob-barnard.com

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Woodfired Pottery
[at ArtistPotters]

Retrospective Exhibit [at ArtistPotters]

Rob Barnard bowl
 


Rob Barnard is an artist who, for the last 30 years has pursued his aesthetic inquiries inside the framework of woodfired pottery. He has been an advocate, both in print as well as well as in his own work, for the revival of the cultural importance of pottery in modern society. With his work he has managed to achieve a simplicity, and unpretentiousness that belie the conceptual complexity behind it.

Though Barnard's forms have historical associations, a Barnard vessel is unmistakable in its sense of individuality and mystery uncommon in most contemporary ceramics. His pottery is fired raw, without oxides or glazes, over a period of three days and nights in an anagama (wood-fired kiln). The surface effects and coloration are the direct result of the lengthy firing process. The immediacy, uncertainty, and directness of this process continue to hold Barnard's interest. It also is a process essential to realizing the potential Barnard believes that pottery has to be aesthetically significant. Along with his unglazed work, Barnard has begun exploration into glazed work. Using a simple slip and a clear glaze, he has managed to maintain the austere quality of the unglazed work while adding a kind of refined elegance.

 

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