‘I make wheel thrown and handbuilt slip decorated earthenware, fired in an electric kiln. I would say all the work is functional. Working with slip is for me all about the moment, everything else is preparation for that. I prepare the materials, plans, ideas and myself and then stop thinking and act. Sometimes it works and other times not, when it does it’s like everything flows. With the finished work, I look to see if I have caught any of that moment.
There are lots of influences, traditional slipware, music, outsider art, contemporary American ceramics and abstract expressionism. I think my work is an attempt to catch some glimpses of life’s euphoria and communicate them in the best way I can.’
Dylan studied at Camberwell School of Art (1989-91) and was assistant to various potters in the USA, before setting up his studio in Oxfordshire in 1998. He is widely exhibited and has taken part in Ceramic Art London (RCA) since 2005.
“Dylan makes slipware really quite unlike any other being produced today. There is a rhythmical attack, a flow of gestural energy that conjures up some of the most vibrant traditions of 17th and 18th century decorated earthenware. Yet it has a force that also reflects some of the more vigorous and minimal expressions of 20th century abstraction – particularly American – in painting and ceramics. He also cites Outsider Art and music as influences. His fresh and original combinations of colour on big platters and plates, the particular nature of these creamy surfaces on free, expansively thrown and press-moulded forms, take the art of slip somewhere new and exhilarating”
(text by David Whiting for catalogue of successful show – ‘Three Potters’ with Dylan Bowen, Jane Hamlyn and Rob Barnard- at Gallerie Besson, London.