Blue Black is a process driven maker who works with clay and a range of found and discarded organic and man-made materials.  Flowers, vegetables, plant roots, egg cartons, clothes, foam and various other scavenged materials and objects are dipped in layers of clay slip, fired, glazed, fired again, and worked and reworked until they find a new life.  It is an evolving and intuitive process that results in organic, colourful and often unsettling sculptures reminiscent of body parts and organs, and only vaguely suggestive of their original form.  This installation brings together a selection of recent work and new pieces created especially for the Gore exhibition.

 

Blue Black was born in Christchurch in 1957.  He first began working with clay in the late 1980’s after attending a pottery course with Margaret Riley.  He then studied Fine and Applied Arts at the Whanganui Polytechnic, before going on to complete a Diploma of Ceramic Arts at Otago Polytechnic (1994), followed by a Master of Fine Arts.  As well as a two-times finalist in the Portage Ceramic awards (2006, 2014) and a finalist in the prestigious Wallace Awards (2008), he was also the  Premier Winner of 2014 Lysaght Watt Trust Art Award.