Blogs

Thanks to Rachel a writer from 'Apartment Therapy' for the feature on my piece currently on show at Artomatic in Washington DC.
Check out the web blog: http://www.apartmenttherapy.com/dc/district-of-columbia/artomatic-2009-a...

'The Deconstruction of Trade has been awarded an 'Honorable Mention' medal award at The 5th World Ceramic Biennale, Korea 2009. A glossy catalogue featuring work for the Biennale can be purchased - www.wocef.com, ISBN 978-89-89748-69-4.

Exterior-Interior is now in the permanent collection of the Arts Council Northern Ireland. The collection is comprehensive, with over 1000 artworks, collected over more than 50 years.
www.artscouncil-ni.org

Ian Wilson has recently published an article about my work titled, 'Wider die etablierte vermutung' in Keramik Magazin Europa No2/2009 April/May.
www.keramikmagazin.de

Sligo Art Gallery and Kids'own Publishing Partnership present 'Insight' open artist talks and presentations - 2.00pm - 4.30pm Saturday 17th January 2009 at Sligo Art Gallery. I will be giving a presentation titled 'Expanded Location - formal practice and new technologies' followed by a lead discussion on 'Seeing beyond the technology'.
An exhibition of a retrospective of Kids'own work titled 'Insight' will be opened by Martin Drury, Arts Director, The Arts Council Ireland at 4.45pm.

See websites: www.sligoartgallery.com and www.kidsown.ie

"Creamer Divided" has been selected for CERAMICA MULTIPLEX 2009 - International Festival of Postmodern Ceramics. The work is part of the exhibition which is made up of 170 artists from 43 countries and is one of only 8 entries selected from the UK. The festival and exhibition runs in The City Museum, Varazdin, Croatia - April 18-May 17.
Details can be found at www.kerameikon.com

'The Deconstruction of Trade' has been selected for the 5th World Ceramic Biennale in Korea in 2009. 1,726 artists from 70 countries submitted work and 186 artists were selected by the panel consisting of 5 experts from the field of ceramics and contemporary art. The Biennale will take place at the Icheon World Ceramic Center (WOCEF) 25/4 -21/5 2009. www.wocef.com

Just returned from the 'Crafticulation' conference at the University of Helsinki - where I gave a paper titled Decentred Meaning: Ceramic Materiality -Relocating Process and Technique. The conference consisted of an international audience who gave some interesting papers on the contemporary craft arena. See image of myself with Joseph McBrinn from Ireland and Sandra Alfoldy from Canada - editor of 'NeoCraft' and organiser of the conference of the same name last year in Canada www.neocraft.ca - the reindeer I am afraid was unavailable for comment...

There are some interesting texts around art and craft at the minute of which some of you, I'm sure are aware. I have just taken possession of 'The Intangibilities of Form: Skill and Deskilling in Art After the Readymade' by John Roberts which holds seven interesting chapters including 'Modernism, Repetition and the Readymade' - this seems almost essential reading for any artists like me that engage with installation and found object. Will report back on the book when I have read it - maybe there are comments from readers already?

Auto-materiality is now part of the permanent 'Garth Clark Mark Del Vecchio Collection' at the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, USA. Garth Clark and Mark Del Vecchio have been leaders in the field of ceramics for over 25 years and this collection is seen as one of the most important private collections of contemporary ceramics in the world.

The collection comprises of over 375 works including works by, Peter Voulkos, Beatrice Wood, Lucio Fontana, Claes Oledenberg and Grayson Perry.