DYLAN BOWEN | New Sculptural Slipware

Oxfordshire-based Dylan Bowen’s distinctive expressive ‘fine art’ ceramics have their roots in traditional slipware, but with contemporary influences. They are complemented in this selling show with Artworks by 20th Century Modern Masters such as Terry Frost, Patrick Heron, Albert Irvin, and Victor Pasmore.

Bowen makes slip-decorated earthenware ceramics using traditional and contemporary materials and techniques.  He works on a small but ever-changing range of shapes, large platters, bowls, and sculptural forms.  The clay is thrown, cut, carved, or hand-built, and decorated with coloured slips and glazes that are poured, dipped, or brushed onto the surface. Marks are made quickly using trailers while the layers of slip are still wet.

"There are lots of influences: traditional slipware, music, outsider art, contemporary American ceramics and abstract expressionism. I think my work is an attempt to catch glimpses of life’s euphoria and express these in the best way I can."

Born in 1967, Dylan trained with his father, Clive Bowen at Shebbear Pottery before going on to study ceramics at Camberwell School of Art (1989–91), and was an assistant to various potters in the USA, before setting up his studio in Oxfordshire in 1998, which he has shared with his wife, the potter Jane Bowen, for the past 20 years. He is widely exhibited and has participated in Ceramic Art London (RCA) since 2005.