Uno22: Six – Celebrating Everything We Love About Sussex Through Art, Design & Craft

Celebrating Everything We Love About Sussex Through Art, Design & Craft

Gallery Uno, 14a High Street, Seaford BN25 1PG Summer opening times: Mon – Sat 10am – 4pm, Sundays and Jubilee Bank Holidays midday – 3pm (Closed Wednesdays), from Thursday 26th May until Tuesday 21st June.

June is going to be a busy month. At Gallery Uno, as we go headlong towards mid-summer and the longest day we will be marking Queen Elizabeth II’s 70-year reign during the extended bank holiday weekend and naturally we will be celebrating Sussex Day on 16th June.

For the Platinum Jubilee, Gallery Uno is delighted to collaborate with Cradlehill School to produce artwork by the next generation of budding artists. Students have been invited to produce a portrait of Her Majesty, culminating in an exhibition of seventy selected Queen’s Heads for our window between 2nd and 8th June. Meanwhile, within the gallery and in recognition of everything great about the county in which we live, we will be showcasing in our own inevitable way another captivating display from members of the Sussex Arts Collective.

Our featured artist this month is David Harrison, whose wife Barbie was featured in April’s edition. His extraordinary sculptural pots are a must to be seen.

dAvid HARRiSoN – Potter

Born in London, David grew up in Durham City. He studied at Newcastle School of Art and ceramics at Bath Academy of Art at Corsham, under Ian Auld, Bryan Newman and John Colbeck. Moving to Brighton, he took a post that eventually became that of senior technician to the sculpture course at the University of Brighton. During this time he acquired a number of skills other than those of ceramics. Concurrently he was teaching in the prison at Lewes besides pursuing his own practice, and eventually he retired from the university and later the teaching to devote his time to his work and garden.

David lives near Chiddingly in East Sussex with his wife, painter, Barbie and their two whippets. They share a love of nature and the care of grandchildren. He has experimented with various techniques of pottery including raku and indeed, still makes domestic ware for his household, but since 2000, he has concentrated his efforts on burnished ware.

The interest in this method was engendered when he discovered a buried piece of Romano-British pottery on an early iron-making site known as a bloomery near his home. The bonfire-fired piece still retained its waxed surface and when scratched smelled of beeswax, although it had been buried in clay for hundreds of years, proving the stability of this compound. Not far from this find he discovered a number of Mesolithic stone tools, and the forms and texture of these implements still inform his work.

The pieces David makes are thrown then altered and assembled in the ‘leather hard’ state, after which he burnishes each piece to a high finish with polished agate. This can take several hours over many days, and it can be a somewhat meditative experience. The work is then bisque fired to a low temperature and subsequently re-fired in a fire made from natural materials such as wood chip, bracken and twigs with inclusions of copper and salt.

Subsequently the pieces are polished with beeswax to help fix and enhance the marks of the fire and protect the surface. Contact: www.davidjharrison.co.uk dave@davidjharrison.co.uk.