Paul Scott presents a solo exhibition this May – Scenery, Samplers & Souvenirs. This exhibition features new artworks which update historical transferwares for the 21st century, including a selection from his New American Scenery series, alongside the Spode Works Closed Series, English Scenery Series and the Cuttings Series. The exhibition also features work made as a result of his Gardens of Lyra collaboration with Spode and Fortnum & Mason. This blog explores the Cuttings Series in further detail in Paul Scott’s own words.
Cumbria Blue(s) Flower Pots were originally made for an installation at Cheeseburn Sculpture Park in the summer of 2016. The works involved cutting floral details from broken transferwares, glazing and lustering edges before using a wire fixing to set them within sharp sand and gravel, very much as one would take cuttings in the garden.
I have created a a small number of new iterations for Scenery, Samplers & Souvenirs, which are more realised developments of the originals. They include some flowers in transferware cups.
Also included in the exhibition are works from the Cuttings Series. These small artworks are also sourced from cracked or broken antique transferwares, but in this case the extracted elements are taken from landscapes and patterned borders.
Some are simply presented as small precious objects, a bit like the pottery shards found on beaches or unearthed on river banks by ‘mudlarkers’ that always hold such fascination...
I have been taking ‘cuttings’ from antique tablewares sporadically for a number of years.
As my collection grew I tried a number of iterations, and in 2015 exhibited extracted details as a series of ‘Cuttings’ on plates. As the nature of graphic details became more eclectic and landscape based I found it necessary to re-think their resolution. The tiled bases (made from off-cuts of hand made porcelain tiles that originate in Jingdezhen in China) ground the details in a formal way, reminiscent of a stage set or diorama.
These are the first sculptural pieces from the Cuttings series to be exhibited in this way. They reference earlier Cumbrian Blue(s) Trees & Vignettes which featured screen printed graphics developed from extracted transferware pattern details applied to specially made sculptural forms.
– Paul Scott, April 2021
You can view Paul Scott’s May 2021 exhibition Scenery, Samplers & Souvenirs here and watch our short handling film below to view a few key pieces from the Cuttings Series that feature in the exhibition.
