Dan Kelly

DAN KELLYs statuesque wheel thrown black pots are largely influenced by Oriental pots, African art and calligraphy. Dan originally wanted to be a painter but early on developed a passion for clay and the ability to express himself through the suggestive characteristics of this material. David Whitings catalogue essay of Dan Kellys solo exhibition in 2002 charts the influences on his early development as a potter. He benefited from his teachers Colin Pearson (who appeared to be reinventing the wheel when throwing was being marginalized), and Ewen Henderson who deepened his awareness of drawing and the endless possibilities of detail in the form of the pot.

Kellys interest in Oriental pots began when he was a student. He was also influenced by African art, and the work of Jackson Pollock and Willem de Kooning. His technique of throwing which included improvisation and alteration gave him great freedom. Whiting writes, Kelly has been able to integrate an appreciation of Western abstraction and Eastern pottery ? into objects where form and surface coalesce.

Tanya Harrod, reviewing an early Colin Gorry and Dan Kelly exhibition in 1987, wrote that Kelly is a brave and vigorous [potter]. Both demonstrate the beauties of throwing, assembling and altering. In that way they are successors to Coper. Like Hans Coper, Kelly has deliberately restricted his palette, making mostly black forms and finding limitless possibilities in the rented and torn profile of rims and bases. Throughout his career, Dan Kelly has continued to work on a family of cylindrical forms. By altering only the minutiae of form in terms of profile or waist, and by emphasizing the qualities of the material itself, he has created a body of work where each pot has had its own distinctive presence and character. The roughened surface of the clay, the throwing rings, slashes, depressions, abrasions, openings and oriental like swirls of colour create the tension and decoration. As Whiting comments, Kelly has found so much to say .. with a calligraphic swipe of contrasting slip? A diagonal stripe of slip can both disturb and unite a surface with an energy reminiscent of T?pies ? and Lucio Fontana.

At various times in his career, Kelly has also made much smaller pieces often in porcelain and sometimes with lighter buff and pink glazes. Though they are small in size, they unmistakeably echo Kelly?s larger pots. In some of his most recent large work the cylinder has been more enclosed, with some having only the smallest apertures at the top.

In Harrods prescient review, she wrote Kelly is a much more ebullient, rough potter. At his best, he causes us to think of Peter Voulkos ? In the States, work like Kellys would be hailed with excitement; perhaps here in Britain we are a bit frightened of evidence of fracture in his pieces.

More artworks below