Stephen Parry

Stephen Parry makes highly individual and powerful wood-fired stoneware and porcelain with very generous ash glazing which adds life and motion to the particular forms he has made his own. His tall slender jugs are very distinctive, with a freedom that recalls their medieval forebears, and his large-scale and elegant jars also have an impressively sculptural presence. His pots successfully synthesise Western and Oriental influences, but are combined into a modern language that celebrates the processes of making and firing. They never look slick. From the small mugs and guinomis to big monumental pieces, Parry invests his work with considerable energy and drama, but it is also deeply contemplative. It has its own qualities of stillness and quiet. In the 1970s Parry trained at Croydon College of Art and Dartington Pottery Workshop, before spending a period in France where he developed his great interest in wood firing. He is based in Fakenham, Norfolk.

David Whiting