Tony Marsh

The ceramic vessel has always been my primary vehicle of artistic expression. I am fascinated by its deep and unparalleled history and position between nature and culture. While the vessels that I make are not utilitarian nor do they explicitly refer to a historical pottery type or style, I believe that I use them as a device to address the essential. On a simple level they do attempt to pay homage to what pottery from around the world has always been required to do, hold, preserve, offer, commemorate and beautify. Marriage, fertility, creation, death and the difference between the numinous and pure materiality are the essential primary subjects related to human experience that occur and reoccur in my work. Much of the work is dichotomous in nature; being both sensual and cerebral, organic & geometric, solid & weightless, masculine & feminine. In the end, whether it might be a vase on a table, an empty coin bank, the bowl on the night stand, a burial urn or a ballot box, what could be more natural than to put something.....meaning....... in a vessel?