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Geoffrey Swindell - Solo Exhibition April 2013

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Solo Exhibition of a new body of work from Geoffrey Swindell.

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Oxford Ceramics GalleryGEOFFREY SWINDELL

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Geoffrey Swindell’s work is amongst the most recognisable in British ceramics.One of its great miniaturists, his small concentrated landscapes are full of imaginative incident and detail, and extraordinaryin their decorative density. ey have their own kind of narrative, one with its origin in a childhood microcosm fascinated bythe miniature, from the toys that surrounded him to his early love of model kits. He eventually progressed to painting his ownpersonal mythology of landscapes and buildings, a preoccupation that led him to art college in his home city of Stoke-on-Trent.It It was while studying art that he discovered ceramics, more particularly the highly refined work of pooers like Lucie Rie andRuth Duckworth. It was a conversion to clay that subsequently took Swindell to further studies at the Royal College of Art.

e porcelain of Duckworth and others had an organic quality, fragile and almost unearthly. It coalesced with Swindell’saoraction to the comparable qualities of form and surface in the seashells he was beginning to collect. His first small piecesbegan to emerge, and Swindell became part of an important new porcelain aesthetic in the late 60s and early 70s. A persuasivealtealternative to the more familiar world of stoneware casseroles and bread crocks, which Swindell wanted to move beyond, otherleading exemplars included Peter Simpson, Deirdre Burneo, Mary Rogers and Ursula Morley Price. However Swindell’s work wasquite distinct. His terms of reference broadened out to other more fantastic worlds, and from then on his pieces seemed asconsciously urban as anything you might find on a beach or sea bed. It has a complexity of source material and structure.

e work is precision-engineered, yet such exactitude, such high definition throwing and turning (his pots resemble more theproduct of the lathe than the wheel) is offset by movements of colour and glaze suproduct of the lathe than the wheel) is offset by movements of colour and glaze surface. ere is a chromatic freedom withinthis control that gives these diminutive sculptures a jewel-like iridescence. Here are the crystalline hues and textures of someexotic shell or coral, but also the seductive coloration and forms of childhood objects, of sci-fi imagery, of strange alien places. ese vessels, ooen encrusted with various structures, may have some semblance of function. ere are decorative spouts,handle loops, elaborated lids and stoppers, while his vases and bowls even have a hint of Chinese Song about them.

Swindell has shown that ceramics can move into a more priSwindell has shown that ceramics can move into a more private realm, and to a great extent it is one born of his own verypersonal experience. When the critic Philip Rawson talked about ‘ceramics as treasure’ he was thinking in part about objectsto be admired rather than touched. But this is a kind of found treasure to be picked up too, as one might pick up a luminousrichly paoerned mollusc or crystal. Geoffrey Swindell’s inimitable highly craoed art has this intimacy; a sense of thehidden revealed.

David Whiting / March 2013

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GEOFFREY SWINDELLPublic CollectionsVictoria and Albert Museum, LondonMuseum and Art Gallery’s in: Leicester, SwindonReading, Birmingham, Bradford, Newport, Portsmouth, Stoke-on-TrentNooingham Castle Museum & Art GalleryAshmolean Museum, OxfordAshmolean Museum, OxfordHolburne Museum, Bath Royal Ulster Museum, BelfastRoyal Scooish Museum & Edinburgh Castle MuseumAbbot Hall, Museum, KendalNational Museum of Wales, CardiffAbingdon Museum, OxfordshireUniversity College of WalesAbeAberystwyth Welsh Arts CouncilCraas Council, LondonYorkshire Education AuthorityGallery Oldham, Manchester.Boyman-van Beunigen, RooerdamArt and History Museum, BrusselsPrincessenhof Museum, Leeuwarden, HollandMuseum of Applied AMuseum of Applied Arts, Sydney, AustraliaNational Gallery of Victoria, AustraliaPerth Museum, AustraliaMuseum for Applied Art, Cologne, GermanyMuseum of Hanover, GermanyKeramion Ceramics Museum, GermanyNational Museum for Ceramics, Valencia, SpainLandes Museum of Decorative ALandes Museum of Decorative Arts, Lausanne, SwitzerlandBellerive Museum, Switzerland

Solo Exhibitions1972 British Craa Centre. London1974 Oxford Gallery, Oxford1974 Midland Group Gallery, Nooingham1974 Suoon College, Surrey1978 National Museum of Wales, Cardiff1979 Oxford Galle1979 Oxford Gallery, Oxford1980 James Graham & Sons Gallery, New York1985 James Graham & Sons Gallery, New York1988 Aberystwyth Arts Centre, Wales1997 European Ceramics, Yorkshire1999 James Graham & Sons Gallery, New York2002 Newport Museum & Art Gallery. Newport. S.Wales2003 James Graham & Sons. New 2003 James Graham & Sons. New York2006 James Graham & Sons. New York2013 Oxford Ceramics Gallery, Oxford

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GEOFFREY SWINDELLPublic CollectionsVictoria and Albert Museum, LondonMuseum and Art Gallery’s in: Leicester, SwindonReading, Birmingham, Bradford, Newport, Portsmouth, Stoke-on-TrentNooingham Castle Museum & Art GalleryAshmolean Museum, OxfordAshmolean Museum, OxfordHolburne Museum, Bath Royal Ulster Museum, BelfastRoyal Scooish Museum & Edinburgh Castle MuseumAbbot Hall, Museum, KendalNational Museum of Wales, CardiffAbingdon Museum, OxfordshireUniversity College of WalesAbeAberystwyth Welsh Arts CouncilCraas Council, LondonYorkshire Education AuthorityGallery Oldham, Manchester.Boyman-van Beunigen, RooerdamArt and History Museum, BrusselsPrincessenhof Museum, Leeuwarden, HollandMuseum of Applied AMuseum of Applied Arts, Sydney, AustraliaNational Gallery of Victoria, AustraliaPerth Museum, AustraliaMuseum for Applied Art, Cologne, GermanyMuseum of Hanover, GermanyKeramion Ceramics Museum, GermanyNational Museum for Ceramics, Valencia, SpainLandes Museum of Decorative ALandes Museum of Decorative Arts, Lausanne, SwitzerlandBellerive Museum, Switzerland

Solo Exhibitions1972 British Craa Centre. London1974 Oxford Gallery, Oxford1974 Midland Group Gallery, Nooingham1974 Suoon College, Surrey1978 National Museum of Wales, Cardiff1979 Oxford Galle1979 Oxford Gallery, Oxford1980 James Graham & Sons Gallery, New York1985 James Graham & Sons Gallery, New York1988 Aberystwyth Arts Centre, Wales1997 European Ceramics, Yorkshire1999 James Graham & Sons Gallery, New York2002 Newport Museum & Art Gallery. Newport. S.Wales2003 James Graham & Sons. New 2003 James Graham & Sons. New York2006 James Graham & Sons. New York2013 Oxford Ceramics Gallery, Oxford

Published by Oxford Ceramics Ltd.©Oxford Ceramics Ltd. 2013Oxford Ceramics Gallery29 Walton Street, Oxford, Oxfordshire OX26AAtel: (+44) 01865 512320Introduction ©David Whiting 2013PhotogPhotography ©Michael HarrisPhotography ©Geoffrey SwindellDesign: Michael Harris

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