By Dawn Lui, GaleriePerrie.com

Texture

The texture of ceramics and stoneware invite visual exploration and versatility. From subtle nuances such as types of glazes, clay and individual styles, the surface texture of ceramics provides a plethora of styles for varying tastes. If you prefer more simple minimalistic approaches to ceramics for your interior collection, smooth austere designs might be a fine addition. Clay fired in kilns without glazing often presents a simple, austere and even raw finish to its surface texture. Making them ideal artistic touches to an abstract contemporary environment. Moreover, manipulated surfaces pre kiln firing can achieve even more diverse aesthetics given its manipulations to the individual artist. Varied honey-combed, or sandy textures in contrasting colors can also be a nice daring addition or introduction into more experimental ceramics.

Tara Vaughan – Wave | no. 20 in black, (c) Galerie Perrie.

Abid Javed – Origins 22, (c) Galerie Perrie.

Adornment

The ceramic itself presents as a blank canvas full of artistic opportunities for design and adornments. In contemporary ceramics, many artists began to experiment with more materials and mediums when working with this medium. From adding patterns, textures to colors to enrich a ceramic design, adornments on ceramics can be a pathway to more experimental and aesthetically diverse ceramics for your collection. In Galerie Perrie’s catalogue, Matthew Ward’s Peacock Pattern Bulb Vase is a delightful starting point to decorative ceramics. Ward’s usage of different underglazes and intricately carved spherical patterns transforms his ceramic vase into a visually sublime showcase of craftsmanship and design.

Matthew Ward – Peacock Pattern Bulb Vase, (c) Galerie Perrie.

Glaze

Glazing is what creates the iconic glossy finish of ceramics. Utilizing powdered silica and other fluxes and stabilizers mixed with water and applied to a clay body, this helps create the glass-like coating to ceramics when being fired in a kiln. Due to its ability to achieve a smooth glossy texture and lock in color, glazed ceramics are still very popular among collectors today. Glazed stoneware and ceramics also vary in terms of style due to the artistic liberties, mostly through the usage of color and design, which some artists may even create slip ceramics such as the sgraffito technique to expose layers and multiple colors of a ceramic.

Matthew Ward – Black Polka Dot Tall Jar, (c) Galerie Perrie.

Genre and style

With ceramic’s primal form as moldable clay, the artistic possibilities of stoneware are an exciting playground for artists, collectors and enthusiasts alike. Many artists explore the composition and dimension of ceramics creating abstract expressionist installations. In Galerie Perrie’s catalogue, works by Tara Vaughan creates intimate ceramics that expresses provocation between the relationship of her ceramic works and its surrounding spaces. Her Hug series explores intimacy and its expressions through the multi-dimensional interactions her ceramics engages with the interior space, providing a more nuanced interpretation than traditional singular vessel-like ceramics.

Tara Vaughan – Hug, (c) Galerie Perrie.

All in all, the world of ceramics within interior design and art collecting is a wonderfully diverse space for genre and textual exploration. Whether a new or established collector, acquiring ceramic art is an excellent starting point to enrich the artistic scene within the interior space and diversify your artistic palette.

Click here to browse all available sculptures on GaleriePerrie.com