Aaron Angell

Rob Tufnell presents an exhibition of new ceramic sculpture by Aaron Angell. The works are all derived in some sense from depictions of the disembodied head of John the Baptist as presented, on a plate, by King Herod to his daughter Herodias. They expand upon Angell’s recent visual vocabulary by variously substituting the prophet’s head with that of a dog, some cats, fragments of Romantic ruins and structures that are at once based upon pipe organs and industrial chimneys.

Angell’s plates are the first thrown works that he has exhibited and were produced at the Leach Pottery in St. Ives, Cornwall. They were produced using the standard range of Leach Pottery stoneware glazes, but also experiment with some new Shino glazes which are based upon others from the Japanese Momoyama period (1568–1600).

Founded in 1920 by Bernard Leach (1887 - 1979) and Hamada Shoji (1894-1978) the Leach Pottery is recognised as the birthplace of British studio pottery. It was here that Leach developed his distinctive ceramics that incorporated traditional Chinese, Japanese and Korean crafts with English slipware. It is now run as an independent charitable trust.

Angell studied at the Slade School of Art and is the founder of Troy Town Art Pottery in London. His recent exhibitions include ‘That Continuous Thing: Artists and the Ceramics Studio, 1920 - Today’, Tate St Ives (2017); ‘The Death of Robin Hood’, Glasgow International, Kelvingrove Museum & Art Gallery and the Glasgow Botanic Gardens; ‘Variations on the Chaldon Doom’, Markus Lüttgen, Cologne and the British Art Show 8 (touring to Edinburgh, Leeds, Norwich) (all 2016) and ‘Grotwork’, Studio Voltaire, London (2015).

Angell has forthcoming solo exhibitions in 2017 at Glasgow’s Gallery of Modern Art and, in 2018, at Art Exchange, University of Essex, Colchester and Kunstverein Freiburg.