Andrew Adair

Andrew trained in Ceramics at Glasgow School of Art, after a foundation year at Carlisle. At Glasgow he was taught by Archie McColl and Dave Cohen, as well as the world-renowned Alan Peascod who gave him his love and respect for surface and glazes.

He has been a practising ceramic artist for over thirty years and has always tried to maintain a playful approach to clay, allowing the material to be evident through torn edges, cracks, texture and surface, enjoying the random, organic quality this brings. Relentlessly experimental, his work almost always focuses on texture, surface, and interaction with his material. He occasionally works in 2D as a mixed media artist, but recently has been focused on his first love, ceramics, and current work is wheel thrown or hand built with an edginess and physicality which is intuitive but based in a deep understanding of his craft.

He has worked as an artist teacher, community artist, tutor, lecturer and for many years now gallery assistant at Gracefield Arts Centre in Dumfries, while always maintaining a studio and his own studio practice. He exhibits across Scotland and in England, was a council member of Scottish Artists and Artist Craftsmen (SAAC), and has had commissions for public art and business awards.

“I greatly admire potters such as Voulkos, Pearson, Maltby and Peascod (who I was privileged to be taught by) for their affinity with their medium and the real integrity their work has.

My work must have similar integrity at its core and the material itself must be clearly manifest in the finished pieces. I enjoy “the potness of the pot”; something to be handled and appreciated in a tactile sense, not just through an aesthetic eye. I remain fascinated by the same themes, the interplay between positive and negative space, the layering and distressing of surface, the unpredictable and the accidental. These are constants in my work.

I use a subtle and limited palette using different clays as a base. This involves stretching, layering and folding the clay, then imprinting the surface; printmaking with clay and glaze instead of paper and ink. My ideas in terms of content are suggested by topical discussions, news stories, quotes, the music playing while I work, whatever catches my mind and eye.”