Emmanuel Cooper |
Emmanuel Cooper is a potter with an international reputation, who has had a studio in Camden for over thirty years. He has work in many national collections, including the Victoria and Albert Museum and the Royal Scottish Museum, Edinburgh.
Emmanuel Cooper produces mainly bowls and jugs, fired to a high temperature in a range of colours and textures. These are made chiefly by throwing on the wheel in a variety of shapes and sizes, many covered with richly coloured and textured glazes. The textured surfaces can be read as alluding to freedom, emotion, unchecked feeling, while the smoother ones aspire to a sense of order and impersonality.
‘My work is often influenced by the urban city environment where I live in Primrose Hill, by such things as hard, textured surfaces, by the glare of street lighting, the endless movement of people and traffic, and by a general sense of urgency. Colours are those of roads, pavements and building, colours and textures we encounter in the metropolis.’
Technically, the surface effects are achieved by applying layers of slip and glaze and multiple firings. The oxides such as iron, manganese and cobalt are used to give the dark inner layer that sometimes breaks through the glaze surface in voluptuous profusion. All the work is fired to 1260˚C in an electric kiln in a slow firing cycle to allow body, slip and glaze to interact.
Emmanuel Cooper is Visiting Professor in Ceramics and Glass at the Royal College of Art and is editor of the internationally acclaimed magazine Ceramic Review, and author of many books on art and ceramics. His book, Bernard Leach: Life and Work (Yale University Press), is the definitive biography of the great potter. Currently reprinting