Flights of Fancy is an exhibition by British ceramic artist Gareth Mason, who is known for his highly tactile treatment of the ceramic vessel. Opening at Carpenters in London, the exhibition, whose title refers to the fanciful nature of the waking imagination, features seven new works that advance Mason’s singular approach to the ceramic palette. In these works, we see molded and punctured pale porcelain, dark, rugged stoneware, liquid glazes and thermally transformed granite all brought into action through a combination of wheel-throwing, free-form construction and multiple-firing.
The medium of ceramics is shaped by many common conventions with which Mason has consistently engaged over his four-decade career, particularly those surrounding the perceived purity of porcelain. For him, these standards offer fertile ground for experimentation. Entangling material risk and irreverence with an innate respect for the medium's history, Mason develops restless tensions and surreal contradictions that defy straightforward resolution. In Flights of Fancy, notions of completion are upended as the work remains open to intervention and change.