Potters on Pots: Stephen Bowers

The traditions and material qualities of pottery attracted me from an early age. Like many people, I recall discovering fragments of pottery when I was a child, including much blue and white china. These fragments were scattered in the garden and also concentrated in a small ‘midden heap’ (domestic waste site) near a stream that ran through the property of our suburban family home in Sydney. The rich detail and exotic, esoteric nature of the fragmented images on the shards kindled a long-lasting interest, which came to inspire, influence and inform the work I later made.

My original fascination with the pottery shards of my childhood developed over time. This then crystallised around the idea of creating detailed underglaze imagery that was clear, concise and magically resistant to time and the elements. As my work developed, I found I was also responding to the power of the fragmented narratives implied on the shards. This translated into further investigation of techniques such as transfer-ware and hand-painted decoration. Although I utilise aspects of print transfer in my work, it is hand painting in underglaze (with onglaze embellishment) that has come to define my creative approach.