PAUL SCOTT
Cuttings, Ruins, Refugees and Wild Roses
PAUL SCOTT Cuttings, Ruins, Refugees and Wild Roses 4 August – 3 September 2016 www.scottish-gallery.co.uk/paulscott
16 Dundas Street, Edinburgh EH3 6HZ Telephone 0131 558 1200 Email mail@scottish-gallery.co.uk www.scottish-gallery.co.uk Left: Paul Scott’s studio kiln opening, 29th June 2016
Cover: Scott’s Cumbrian Blue(s), The Syria Series No. 6, 2016 In-glaze decal collage and gold lustre on partially erased Syria platter by unknown maker (c.1870) H33 x W40 cms
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Cuttings, Ruins, Refugees and Wild Roses “By layering a romantic eighteenth-century graphic of a tree against a realistically rendered power plant, or posing cows, complete with genetic identification tags and monstrously engorged udders on a delicate bed of printed forage, Scott forces us to acknowledge the degree to which we repress, naturalise or simply fail to notice the ubiquitous presence of industry and capital in our midst. He makes us recognise the degree to which we are prepared to rationalise and compromise our awareness in order to preserve our fantasy intact. Although subtle, these works critique and expose ideological fallacies, making them the most political work possible.” Amy Gogarty from Paul Scott’s Confected Landscapes and Contemporary Vignettes, in Ceramics Art and Perception No. 75, 2009 “As someone who, on occasion, delves into historical repositories and archives in pursuit of information, ideas and visual materials, I am keenly aware of the time involved in locating and discovering for oneself new insight in the well-documented field of transferware. Paul Scott has long taken patient delight in exploring both the recognised and the most unlikely archives for fragments. Across three decades of an active artistic career, he has unearthed evidence and information that enlarges our appreciation of print-ware ceramics, and created new understandings of their place in our lives. His work is significant both historically and in terms of contemporary appreciation. Scott’s enthusiastic, almost encyclopedic, knowledge, steady craftsman’s hand, sharp, informed eye and finely tuned sense of wry humour permit him to reveal and illuminate his chosen materials, subjects, compositions and ideas in ways others would miss, bringing subtle nuances to his stories. The new works to be shown at The Scottish Gallery are beguiling composites.
At first glance we see Scott’s obvious interest in the chalcographer’s art, the detailed cobalt and indigo copperplate floral illustrations pop up as cut-out reliefs. Then Scott’s sense of fun is at play with his dry takes on different forms of presentation – his prunings sprout from flower pots and he has seeded transfer-ware details in collages occupying re-purposed printer’s type setting drawers. Some of these new works reflect Scott’s personal love and appreciation of gardening; and gardens are a rich field indeed, with profound significance for humankind. Gardens invoke, at once, the unexplored and untrammelled wilderness of chaotic, organic nature, as well as the cultivated, the nutritional, the utilitarian and the ornamental. Print-ware and gardens? These recent works illustrate and invoke both these themes.”
Stephen Bowers, June 2016 The delightful arrangements of ‘harvested cuttings’ – their practical, 2D/3D presence, their symbolic references as well as their tableau presentation – reveal Scott further as Stephen Bowers is an Australian ceramic artist who is also a a witty and admirable detective of both the facts of their prosaic historical legacy, and the suggestive clues to a more curator, writer, reviewer and arts administrator. His work is represented in numerous public collections worldwide. poetical contemporary interpretation. Left: Paul Scott working in his studio and garden in Cumbria, 2016
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“Using the surfaces of transferware my work has always reflected the contemporary world we live in. As every twenty first century consumer of daily news is aware, the planet appears in a perilous state, with wars, shifting refugee populations and environmental degradation brought about by our insatiable greed for resources. Over the years, my artworks have commemorated and examined a range of issues, from the Foot and Mouth crisis to the impact of energy extraction and production on our environment… I have inserted nuclear and coal fired power stations as well as wind turbines into pastoral landscapes, exploratory oil rigs in pristine arctic locations – and placed landscapes with fracking rigs onto cracked platters. Events in the Middle East have also long been a focus. I recently discovered nineteenth century printed transferwares of ‘exotic’ locations including scenes of ‘Persia’, ‘Palestine’, ‘Syria’, ‘Damascus’, ‘Palmyra’ and ‘Aleppo’. These patterns are often generic in nature, with the same design sometimes gracing the surface of plates with differing titles. In Cuttings, Ruins, Refugees and Wild Roses, I have been updating these wares, erasing something of the nineteenth century exotic fantasies, inserting scenes of the contemporary carnage and destruction now evident in this part of the world.” Paul Scott, 2016
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Scott’s Cumbrian Blue(s), The Syria Series No. 6, 2016 In-glaze decal collage and gold lustre on partially erased Syria platter by unknown maker (c.1870) H33 x W40 cms
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Scott’s Cumbrian Blue(s), The Syria Series No. 7, Aleppo, 2016 In-glaze decal collage and gold lustre on partially erased Aleppo plate by Clementson, Young and Jameson (c.1844) D24 cms
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Scott’s Cumbrian Blue(s), The Syria Series No. 5, Palmyra, 2016 In-glaze decal collage and gold lustre on partially erased, cracked Palmyra bowl by Brownfield (c.1870) H26 x W30 cms
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Scott’s Cumbrian Blue(s), The Syria Series No. 2, Damascus, 2016 In-glaze decal collage and gold lustre on partially erased Damascus plate by Edward and Enoch Wood (c.1830) D26 cms
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Scott’s Cumbrian Blue(s), Palestine, 2016 In-glaze decal collage and gold lustre on partially erased Palestine bowl by Stevenson (c.1820) D26.5 cms
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Scott’s Cumbrian Blue(s), Scenery, (USA), 2013
Scott’s Cumbrian Blue(s), Refugee Series No. 1, 2016
In-glaze decal collage, gold lustre on Mahomedan Mosque and Tomb plate by J. Hall and Sons (c.1825) D25 cms
In-glaze decal collage on partially erased transferware plate by unknown maker D 26 cms
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Scott’s Cumbrian Blue(s), English Scenery, Countryside, 2014
Scott’s Cumbrian Blue(s), English Scenery, Pastoral, 2014
In-glaze decal collage and gold lustre on Davenport plate (c.1850) D26.5 cms
In-glaze decal collage and gold lustre on Pastoral plate by Alfred Meakin (c.1960) D25 cms
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Scott’s Cumbrian Blue(s), English Scenery, Sellafield, The Decommissioning Series, 2014 Screen print (in-glaze decal) on unmarked earthenware platter (c.1900) H37.8 x W47.8 cms
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Scott’s Cumbrian Blue(s), Stigsnæs No. 2, (Denmark), 2007 In-glaze decal collage on Villeroy and Boch plate, bought in Skælskør, five miles from the power plant H30.4 x W42.2 cms
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Scott’s Cumbrian Blue(s), The Horizon Series, Fracked No. 5, 2014 In-glaze decal collage and gold lustre on Booths ironstone platter (c.1900) H32.5 x W42.4 cms
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Scott’s Cumbrian Blue(s), Arctic Scenery, Kulluk, 2014 In-glaze decal collage and gold lustre on shell edged pearlware platter (c.1820) H33 x W41.5 cms
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Scott’s Cumbrian Blue(s), Costa Concordia, 2014 In-glaze decal collage and gold lustre on earthenware platter H30.5 x W40.5 cms
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Scott’s Cumbrian Blue(s), Refugee Series No. 2, 2016 In-glaze decal collage on Burgess & Leigh platter (c.1920) H29.5 x W35.5 cms
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“A Willow for Ai Weiwei (Wen Tao, Liu Zhenggang, Zhang Ginseng & Hu Mingfen) was conceived whilst Chinese artist Ai Weiwei was detained by plainclothes police officers at Beijing airport on 3 April 2011. He appears to have been held by the Chinese authorities because of his practice as a contemporary visual artist. Ai has given few details of his detention, beyond saying that he experienced “extreme conditions.” This piece commemorates his disappearance, and the continuing harassment of his friends and colleagues. The Willow Pattern was designed in Stoke on Trent in the early part of the nineteenth century. It was loosely based on imported Chinese porcelain with painted landscapes. It is the most commonly produced printed ceramic pattern ever made, and is familiar to millions the world over. All the figures in A Willow for Ai Weiwei have been erased, alluding to the disappearing artist and his friends. Where Weiwei might have been can be seen as a white silhouette in the centre of the bridge as he drops a Han dynasty urn (a reference to one of his earlier artworks). Sunflower seeds are scattered around the platter alluding to his installation in Tate Modern in 2011.” Paul Scott, 2012
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Scott’s Cumbrian Blue(s), A Willow for Ai Weiwei (Wen Tao, Liu Zhenggang, Zhang Ginseng & Hu Mingfen), 2014 In-glaze decal collage and gold lustre on partially erased Willow Pattern platter (c.1840) by unknown maker Last platter in the series H32 x W41 cms Similar pieces were acquired by The National Museum of Art, Architecture and Design, Oslo, 2011; Arizona State University Art Museum, 2012 and the Crafts Council Collection, London, 2014.
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Scott’s Cumbrian Blue(s), Fukushima No. 8, 2016 In-glaze decal collage with Kintsugi type repair on broken and re-assembled Double Phoenix Willow platter, by Nikko, Japan (c.1966) with brass pins, gold leaf, tile cement and epoxy resin Last Kintsugi platter in the series H30 x W41 cms
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Scott’s Cumbrian Blue(s), Garden After Stephenson & Mi Youren, 2014 Collage, nineteenth century Staffordshire transferware plate by Stephenson with Chinese porcelain platter by unknown maker H25.3 x W28.7 cms
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“The power of Scott’s work is in the accuracy of his alterations. It is in his truth telling. The tendency of cobalt to bleed helps to invoke that filleted mysticism of nature’s idyll that he so effectively undermines. It stirs memories of the paintings of Corot and Claude…” Andy Christian from The Wild and the Natural, in Ceramic Review 244, July/August 2010
Scott’s Cumbrian Blue(s), Nerc Bridges, 2014
Scott’s Cumbrian Blue(s), Italian Cows, 2014
Collage H25 x W28.5 cms
Collage D25 cms
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Scott’s Cumbrian Blue(s), Bridgeless, 2014
Scott’s Cumbrian Blue(s), Ruin No. 2, Lanerce, 2016
Collage D24 cms
Collage D25 cms
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“I work with ready-made forms, white-ware plates, old tableware from antique/junk shops and e-Bay. I print on them, cut them up and collage with them. I enjoy using old objects because they have already had a life and their material fabric carries something of their histories. In my home we have an old print drawer once used for type blocks in which we place small momentos of journeys, places and people; it has become a domestic repository of memories. The tray itself is also a remnant, a memory of the print media revolution which helped facilitate the industrial age and enable the democratisation of imagery. Recent works have involved the use of print trays to house select edited remnants of our industrial past. Transferware, Staffordshire’s great gift to the world, melded the technology of the paper printer with vitreous melted cobalt blues to create mystical, exotic images on a domestic affordable scale. I harvest details from old, cracked and broken tablewares and give them new lives and meanings in collages that meld historical detail with contemporary fragments of my own printed ceramics.� Paul Scott, 2016
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Scott's Cumbrian Blue(s), Ruin No. 3, 2016 Collage, cut details from assorted transferware plates, with gold leaf in re-purposed print tray H37 x W 29.5 cms
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“In the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, fine art images from paintings were adapted by engravers for reproduction and mass dissemination in magazines, books and art journals. These, in turn were simplified, stylized and further adapted (again by engravers) for use in industrial pottery decoration, giving us the traditional ‘Staffordshire’ blue and white tableware produced by the likes of Spode and Wedgwood. For many years now I have been researching and harvesting material from these industrial print archives including Spode (UK), Sphinx/Ragout (Netherlands), Rörstrand and Gustavsberg Potteries (Sweden). I extract detail and re-size graphic material for placement onto blank antique tablewares, or use the graphic shape to inform new sculptural forms. In other works I indulge in some ‘digital gardening’ growing extracted details into new trees, flower and vegetable beds.” Paul Scott, 2016
Scott’s Cumbrian Blue(s), Tree (after Spode), (Canada), 2007 In-glaze decal collage on old porcelain restaurant-ware from Vancouver H30 x W21.5 x D2 cms
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CUTTINGS, PRUNINGS AND FLOWER POTS “In 2015 I started harvesting details from fragments of early nineteenth century Willow pattern transferware plates. These ceramic ‘cuttings’ were selected because of their visual similarity to foliage and plant material that I propagate in my garden. By placing them onto the surface of plates and platters, I found myself specifically referencing the horticultural. Some cut fragments did not work as compositional material so I discarded them onto a spare plate where they took on the appearance of ‘prunings’ - the kind of plant material that finds its way to the compost heap. Details of old willow patterns are naturally slightly abstracted on editing, but a recent invitation to create an installation for Cheeseburn Sculpture Park in Northumberland brought the work into a clear focus. Here I was confronted by the old potting shed and stacks of old terracotta pots. As a result I began harvesting overtly floral details of old transferware borders and the ‘cuttings’ began to take on very clear echoes of my gardening practice. I have ‘planted’ flowers and leaf cuttings in coarse sand (topped with gravel) in old terracotta pots. These works form part of my ongoing interest in gardening, landscape, and their relationships with print, transferware and text.” Paul Scott, 2016
Opposite, from top: Scott’s Cumbrian Blue(s), The Garden Series, Willow Cuttings, 2015 Cut transferware details and gold lustre on Royal Worcester bone china plate D27 cms Scott’s Cumbrian Blue(s), The Garden Series, Willow Cuttings, 2015 Paul Scott’s garden in Cumbria, 2016
Cut transferware details and gold on Spode bone china plate D23 cms
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Scott’s Cumbrian Blue(s), Flower Pots, 2016 Cut details from early 19th and 20th century transferware plates with gold lustre, coarse sand and gravel in terracotta pots H12 - 21.5 x W7.5 - 12 cms
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Scott’s Cumbrian Blue(s), This Little Piggy Went to Market (After Damien Hirst), 2016 Assemblage, in-glaze decal and gold on Bernardaud porcelain platter (Meadow), with sliced Beswick Champion Boy pig (c.1950) H8.5 x W17.5 cms (Pig) H30 x W39 cms (Platter)
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Scott’s Cumbrian Blue(s), Cow in a Meadow (After Damien Hirst), 2014 Assemblage, in-glaze decal and gold on Bernardaud porcelain platter with sliced cow creamer (c.1850) H13.5 x W18 cms (Cow) H30.2 x W39 cms (Platter)
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Dr Paul Scott b.1953 Visual artist, author, curator, Professor and gardener Education Manchester Institute for Research and Innovation in Art and Design, Manchester Metropolitan University, PhD 2010 St Martin’s College, Lancaster, 1976-1977, B. Ed. Art and Design St Martin’s College, Lancaster, 1972-1975 Public Collections include Victoria & Albert Museum, London New York Historical Society, USA Carnegie Museum of Art, Pittsburgh, USA Mount Holyoke College Art Museum, USA National Museums Liverpool Potteries Museum, Stoke on Trent RISD Museum, Providence, USA Contemporary Art Society, London Plymouth Museum and Art Gallery Bristol Museum and Art Gallery National Museum of Wales, Cardiff Brighton Museum and Art Gallery National Museum of Art, Architecture and Design, Oslo, Norway Alturas Foundation, USA Arizona State University Art Museum, USA Newark Art Museum, USA Brooklyn Museum, USA Boston Museum of Fine Arts, Boston MA, USA The Crafts Council, London
Chatsworth House, Derbyshire Musé Ariana, Geneva, Switzerland Statens Konstråd (National Public Art Council, Sweden) Shipley Art Gallery, Gateshead Danish Arts Foundation, Copenhagen Rörstrand Museum, Lidköping, Sweden Manchester City Art Gallery Museum Bellerive, Collection of Decorative Arts, Zurich National Museum, Stockholm, Sweden Gustavsberg Porcelain Museum, Gustavsberg, Sweden University South Australia, Adelaide, Australia Jam Factory, Adelaide, Australia Museum Ariana, Geneva, Switzerland York City Museum and Art Gallery Australian National University, Canberra Hatton Gallery, University of Newcastle Upon Tyne Tullie House Museum and Art Gallery, Carlisle International Ceramic Center, Skælskør, Denmark Nordenfjeldske Kunstinustrimuseum (National Museum Decorative Arts), Trondheim, Norway
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Horizon: Transferware and Contemporary Ceramics, Arnoldsche Art Publishers/National Museum of Art, Architecture and Design, Oslo. Published in 2015, this publication developed from a similarly titled exhibition curated by Paul Scott at the National Museum in 2013/14. The book examines the creative development of ceramic transferwares, evaluating the nature and scope of their international impact. It illustrates how their successful appropriation by contemporary artists draws on an unexpected cultural longevity. Co-edited and co-designed by Paul Scott, the publication includes a series of commentaries, an extensive visual essay by Scott as well as a critical examination of his work by Knut Astrup Bull. The Gallery will have copies available to purchase for ÂŁ35.
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Published by The Scottish Gallery to coincide with the exhibition PAUL SCOTT Cuttings, Ruins, Refugees and Wild Roses 4 August – 3 September 2016 Exhibition can be viewed online at www.scottish-gallery.co.uk/paulscott ISBN: 978-1-910267-43-1 Printed by J Thomson Colour Printers All rights reserved. No part of this catalogue may be reproduced in any form by print, photocopy or by any other means, without the permission of the copyright holders and of the publishers.
Above: Reverse of Mahomedan Mosque and Tomb plate (Page 10) – Scott’s Cumbrian Blue(s), Scenery, (USA), 2013 16 Dundas Street, Edinburgh EH3 6HZ Telephone 0131 558 1200 Email mail@scottish-gallery.co.uk www.scottish-gallery.co.uk
In-glaze decal collage, gold lustre on Mahomedan Mosque and Tomb plate by J. Hall and Sons (c.1825) Right: Paul Scott’s Cumbrian studio, 2016