Untitled (pasty for a confused potter) is part of an inaugural series of ceramic painted landscapes by Simon Bayliss in the form of Cornish pasties. The colour palette of the series was inspired by a pot by Michael Cardew (1901–83), the first apprentice of the influential studio potter Bernard Leach (1887–1979). Bayliss’s ceramic sculpture was made at Rochester Square ceramics workshop in Camden, during a Standpoint Futures residency, and exhibited in Chicken Nuggets, a collaboration with Cornwall Council Schools Art Collection and school students at Pool School Gallery, Cornwall (2020); and previously shown at the Café at Tate St Ives in conjunction with That Continuous Thing: Artists and the Ceramics Studio, 1920 – Today (2017).

Born in Wolverhampton, Simon Bayliss was raised in Andros, The Bahamas and East Devon, and has been living in Cornwall most of his adult life. Trained as a painter and later as a potter, he works mainly in slipware ceramics, dance music and video, in addition to poetry and performance to explore intersections between the local and the international; traditional crafts and contemporary practice; and queer culture and rural identity. Selected exhibitions are 'Kangaroo Beach', Exeter Phoenix (2018); 'En plein air paintings & ceramics', Newlyn Art Gallery, Cornwall (2017); and 'Frantic Romantic, Eastside Projects', Birmingham (2016). Bayliss was the recipient of an Arts Council DYCP award for ceramics development 2019–20 and Leach Pottery Travel Bursar in 2019, and Standpoint Futures resident at Chisenhale Studios, London in 2017.

Places

Cornwall

Subjects

food & drink, pastry, Cornish pasty

Materials & Techniques

paint, ceramic, glazed, ceramic sculpture

Artist

Simon Bayliss (1984 - )

Title

Untitled (pasty for a confused potter)

Date

2017

Medium

glazed and painted terracotta

Dimensions

height: 26.0 cm; width: 30.5 cm; depth: 5.2 cm

Acquisition

Purchased from the artist March 2021, through the Art XUK project 2020-21

Inscription

verso: signed 'SB / 17'

Provenance

The artist; from whom purchased by UK Government Art Collection, 18 March 2021

GAC number

18910