About the Artwork

grid of ceramic still-life thumbnails by Simon Fell

I have been busy during the lockdowns installing a new kiln and learning it’s characteristics. This should make for a much smoother and faster workflow which I really look forward to.

The title of my show postponed in May 2020 was chosen by an algorithm: ///Move.Fault.Storm. The result is a Haiku-like phrase rich in random imagery. This comes during a period of huge uncertainty and change so it is fitting that my show title is/was/will be fractured and staccato in tone. It implies dynamism, defectiveness and upheaval so it is very much in tune with the extraordinnary times we are living through. Watch this space for any news, at this point I just don’t know if it will occur or something new will come up in its place.

I make ceramics and draw, creating figures and structures that evoke personal and shared 21st century paradoxes. The work is broadly figurative. Ceramic works occupy an interesting and ambiguous place between art, craft and design, taking on different guises depending on how the work is conceived and how it is shown. This mobility makes the medium even more flexible than the raw material and more open to manipulation and conveying meaning. My work has a strong experimental aspect to it, whatever I plan the work may not conform to my original map, it tends to find its own way with its own physical and visual logic. This makes an unpredictable technique even more capricious and ideal in many ways as an art medium as it has an inbuilt tendency to randomise the resulting work.

Duality terra-cotta figures, bisque fired ceramic work in progress by Simon Fell

Terra-cotta figures by Simon Fell on a shelf

There is a constant struggle that goes on between control and letting go in both the conception and production of the artwork.

My work currently takes the form of still lives, vehicles, figures and hands. We have a rapidly changing relationship to the use of our hands and craft or ‘tacit’ (bodily know-how) skills in everyday life and work. Whatever skills that I use in handling the material and understanding how it works may show in the finished item but the work also has other content which is likely to overshadow the display of dexterity – both things are going on at the same time, and they are the qualities that make the work so engaging to produce.

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The Artists Space image, an abstracted image of connections and cores in watercolour

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Artists Insight is an opportunity for artists to meet with another artist and take an overview of the state of their practice in terms of personal meaning, long term aims, and job satisfaction and consider how they might progress. These sessions could transform your art practice simply by helping you use the information you already have about yourself and your work more effectively.

Restart blog

The Restart blog is a series of a dozen posts on the A-N (artists newsletter uk) site about the fundamental issues facing artists trying to establish and maintain a practice in the uk and includes my essential piece on The Creative Cycle and my reflections on drawing, persistence, learning, earning, being an artist, on being male in the 21st century.