Damian Ross

My recent work has been mostly painted porcelain and wheel thrown pottery with hand-built reliefs applied and carved to reflect images encountered in aquatic environments where fish, mayflies and damselflies thrive. These are pieces that exhibit my interest in nature from childhood growing up on the shores of Lake St. Clair.

Lately I have been working on a sculptural piece that is hand-built with coils and long hollow pieces of clay extruded, fired and painted with bright colored acrylic paint, metallic paints then lacquered which I then sand and reapplied more paint and lacquer. I am exploring the possibilities combining techniques to find exciting and colorful results.

I have also been producing wheel thrown pieces using sodium silicate to create a mosaic like surface and applying brightly colored slips and glaze to create a broken glass effect.   I have been Raku firing this work and playing with the use of line. I have been interested in how multiple lines applied with a variety of tools can enhance the form.  Some of these forms are simple cylindrical pieces up to about 24 inches and some round shapes done on the wheel using 20 to 35 pounds of clay.

In all of my ceramic work I am most interested in form, color, and technique.  I like to find out how a variety of materials will affect the clay and I like to employ different types of firing techniques to the work.  I try to keep the work fresh by moving from simple pottery to abstract sculpture and I also like to create installation type work.