Colleen Davies

An African soul - born and educated in central Africa. She enjoys painting, drawing and making art out of balls of clay, often combining the two.

Colleen is a painter/potter, she undertook a BTEC HND  Foundation course in General Art and Design followed by a 4 year degree where she gained a BA(Hons) in Fine Art specialising in Ceramics. Out of the 12 disciplines studied she particularly enjoyed textiles, printmaking and ceramics. She chose clay to follow because of the feel, versatility  and the making processes of throwing and hand building and often combines all three disciplines.

An 8' x 5' ceramic wall mural  being the largest commissioned piece for an agricultural college in Yorkshire.

Potting for over 30 years she produces a unique variety of work from basic functional, decorative one off pieces to sculpture and lighting.

A seamstress since the age of 9, making clothes for her Barbie dolls, then herself and family, also upholstery and soft furnishing, she wanted to transfer this interest of textiles into clay......hence the soft folded impressions. To create this, slabs are rolled onto a textured surface then thrown hard onto newspaper on the floor where the clay will fold and stretch, the pieces are then torn and stuck onto a thrown base. Sprigs of marine critters are added afterwards.

Colleen’s body of work is an exploration of colour and texture inspired by the visual effects of weather and tide on coastal edges and nature. She works intuitively and experimentally when hand building and with clean cut precision when throwing and often combines the two.

Pots are now fired to 1220 degrees in a small electric fired kiln.

Constantly experimenting with new ideas, decoration and home made glazes Colleen's work is never stagnant.

During lockdown she decided to do some forest creatures and took on some commissions to make pets.