The Common Ground is curated by, and presents the paintings and drawings of, Frances Hatch. Its starting point is her observation of the glaze test vessels and notebooks of the potter Katharine Pleydell-Bouverie from the Crafts Study Centre’s collections. These reflect what Hatch calls ‘her curiosity about the specificity and particularity of materials local to her’. In these pieces I meet an artist very much like myself – curious about her “common or garden ground”’.
Frances Hatch has selected a group of ceramics by contemporary makers who also specifically connect to this notion of ground, surface and the specificity of place: Adam Buick, Kyra Cane, Jack Doherty and Akiko Hirai. These works, along with Hatch’s allow her ‘to adopt a wide field of vision to soften t he gaze and stand on a common ground where all artists meet’.
The radical landscape poet Elisabeth Bletsoe has written a poem for the exhibition which is published in a catalogue available from the Crafts Study Centre.
The Common Ground is a selling exhibition and a full hand list of works for sale will be available from the Crafts Study Centre from the 2nd January 2020.
IN CONVERSATION:
FRANCES HATCH AND PROFESSOR SIMON OLDING
Director of the Crafts Study Centre chats with artist Frances Hatch in her Weymouth studio about what inspires her and her work. The film is in two parts. Please watch and enjoy and do feel free to leave comments or questions and we shall endeavour to have Frances and Simon answer and reply here.
