John Tuckwell: Porcelain

John Tuckwell has been a potter for more than 30 years. His studio is based in Bellingen, Northern NSW, Renowned for his elegant, highly technical work using coloured slabs made from liquid white porcelain, he is also a respected teacher.

In 2020 John suffered a major stroke, which changed his direction. Unable to continue working in the same way, he went back into the studio to discover what was possible with reduced physical and cognitive capacity including a shaky hand and impaired sight.

After a year of persevering, John entered a new phase of his porcelain practice. The work he produces now looks quite different to his previous more streamlined constructions, with a stylistic edge.

“My work looks random and abstract,” he says. “Slowly what I am doing now is becoming something like the old. I like the new as much as the old.”

One constant has been his connection to nature, specifically the Australian bush both as theme and inspiration, as well as the nearby mountains. Most of John’s pieces take the form of a vessel, made to look as lightly built and vulnerable as possible. He then uses the exposed outer surface to work on using various techniques, resulting in an interplay of colour, texture, mark making and the magic translucence of white porcelain.

These vessels depict a fragility belying their strength. John took a machete to one of his recent works, Cleave, with astonishing results. He writes:

I made a perfectly decent sculpture and wacked it with a machete.
There isn't any reason for that.
I have owned the completely ordinary tool for about 50 years. Maybe more.
The machete has never been seriously used. It is the object we all have which is a bit surplus but, apart from hiding a few times, never unwanted enough to throw out.
It has seen all of my adult life. I wonder if it is capable of memory,
In one swipe I have transferred all of that life to my clay sculpture.
Maybe.
The sculpture could be a metaphor for my life and the machete a metaphor for my acquired brain injury in 2020.
Now my unwanted machete can go back to sleep.
Well deserved.

Image top: John Tuckwell, Cleave, 2024 Photo: Courtesy of the Artist