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A catalogue to accompany Kiln Gods – Stephen Bird’s fourth solo exhibition with The Scottish Gallery; a relationship which is now into its third decade. Each exhibition has introduced new narratives and his work has never been for the faint hearted; there is disquiet and beauty in equal measure. Bird might depict a seemingly pleasant pastoral aspect of Australia, executed in ‘Spode style’ but containing an element of the macabre – sometimes brutal or grotesque in detail, our expectations subverted by those of a traditionally genteel medium. This is how Bird works; his extraordinary, original vision is expressed with an iconography which is both personal and universal and in a medium which is at once enhanced and subverted. The comfort and continuity we derive from the use of traditional media, be it Oriental or European, of the beautiful marks, shapes and palette Bird deploys, is subverted by his choice of narrative, albeit leavened by humour. There is of course a second tension between his chosen medium, so deeply associated with craft and utility, and the conceptual territory he occupies with his subject.
Many of the works in Kiln Gods were made during his residency at the Taoxichuan International Studio in Jingdezhen, China in 2017 and further works influenced by this experience and his more recent HUA HIN International Contemporary Art Residency, Thailand 2018. Included in the exhibition are several works which were presented when Stephen was an invited guest at the 9th Gyeonggi International Ceramic Biennale, Icheon, Cerapia, South Korea in 2017. Stephen has recently been nominated for the prestigious Sidney Myer Fund Australian Ceramic Award 2019.
‘I work with both paint and clay to make multidimensional imagery which reflects on the global, transcultural nature of myths and ceramic archetypes.’ Stephen Bird
Stephen Bird was born in Stoke-on-Trent in 1964 and has lived in Australia since 1999 after graduating from Duncan of Jordanstone College of Art in Dundee. Making his home and a significant international reputation from New South Wales, Australia, he works with both paint and clay. His work is exhibited both nationally and internationally and he has won both The Gold Coast International Ceramic Award and the Deacon University Small Sculpture Award. His use of words, collage and found objects as part of the final work, results in powerful multi-dimensional imagery which reflect on the global, transcultural nature of myths and ceramic archetypes.
I believe visual art is all about humanity’s relationship to objects and I wish above all to invoke the emotional connections which are felt towards things that have been made by hand with love. I create narratives which explore hybrid identities and transgressive themes such as taboos, cruelty, war, natural disasters, unnatural affections and violent deaths. My works are located in the extremes of the tragicomic tradition. I reinterpret old stories both remembered and imagined and appropriate iconography from established pottery traditions; a decorative Royal Doulton tile, or the cabbage leaf from a Wedgwood Whieldon teapot. I am particularly interested in Staffordshire ceramic figure groups from the 18th century which contain implicit meanings and I often try to decipher their hidden meanings and reimagine these in explicit ways. Stephen Bird
Public collections include:
National Gallery of Australia, Canberra; Art Gallery of South Australia, Adelaide; National Museums Scotland, Edinburgh; National Museums Northern Ireland; The McManus Art Gallery & Museum, Dundee
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