John Parker – Red Lodge Clay Center

John ParkerAuckland, New Zealand


Red Lodge Clay Center Short-Term Resident (AIA) 2016

I have always made things.

As an only child my early resourceful passions were for chemistry sets, puppetry, homemade museums and conjuring tricks.

My forms and aesthetic are of the stark and the industrial, owing more to the design oriented traditions of European ceramics rather than that of the Anglo-Oriental truth to materials philosophy.

I also function as a theatre designer, so I always present a new body of work as an installation/exhibition. These are always staged, with the pieces presented as much for the dramatic effect as for the objects themselves.

I make ware that is recognisable as the classical pottery vessel, bottle or bowl, but my special concern is to push the concepts of these as far as possible into severe minimalism of form and construction and into the functional/non-functional debate to explore the very essence of defining these ideas.