The Work

I aim to make vigorous, tactile, contemplative work with rich, deep surface textures and colours. I am interested in architecture, sea and landscape, and try to capture the sensation of movement in a brush mark, or in the carved surface of a bowl or slab of clay. I work with a palette of bold, soft, subtle and tantalising stoneware glazes.

Wall Pieces

Surface texture is built-up on slabs of clay before a thick application of glaze is painted on in layers, sometimes requiring several firings. The result is a densely painted and richly textured panel, which may evoke something of the original inspiration, but will often become something much more abstracted and unique.

My pots are made with the same painterly approach as the wall panels; surface marks and motifs referencing architectural sources, ocean and landscape.

Gary Wood. 2009

Teaching

In addition to making and exhibiting my work over the last twenty years, I have also organised many pottery workshops for children, adults and people with special-needs. I have experience of working with people who have motor neurone disease, cerebral palsy and stroke sufferers

Recent clay projects include working with 150 children at Freshford Primary School in Bath during the summer term 2006, to create a series of seven ceramic Totem Poles, which are now permanently installed in the school grounds.

Another recent project at Urchfont Primary School near Devizes in Wiltshire resulted in a large internal wall-mounted mural made up of a hundred clay heads, which were modelled by the children.

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