Nicola Tassie

Nicola Tassie is an East London-based ceramic artist with a broad based practice which easily encompasses both wheel-thrown editions of functional pots as well as more sculptural works. Her explorative approach to material is often displayed in eclectic groups of jugs which compliment and contrast surface, texture and glaze.

I make large—sometimes specific—ceramic sculpture; clay wall paintings, as well as tableware, especially jugs which I have an abiding love for. 
The jug is a stand-alone piece, a single object and I like to respond to its individuality. The handle makes it asymmetrical so formerly it has a beginning and end like a canvas or stone block. I work on them as a sketchbook, trying out different surface treatments—playing with glazes, painted slips, drawing lines, incising, inlaying and marking the surface—ideas that may later transfer to my sculptural works.

Each jug here is one-of-a-kind. They’re made with buff, red, and black stoneware clays. Glazed in a variety of matte, glossy, dry ash glazes. The surfaces are incised, slashed, striped, or gouged; with brush strokes of dry Kohiki slip, oxides, dots of glazes. Can you use them? Yes. Are they art? Yes.