The artist
Richard Lee, a Sydney ceramicist making sculpture and tableware drawn from the harbour and its estuaries.
Richard Lee is a ceramicist working from a small studio in Sydney, a short walk from the water. He throws sculpture and tableware in speckled stoneware, then brushes each piece with the swans, crabs and crocodiles of the waterways around him — always in a single cobalt.
Working alone at one wheel and one kiln, he makes every piece by hand and fires each one twice. Nothing is mass-produced and nothing is repeated exactly; each work leaves the studio as its own object. His practice moves between functional tableware for everyday use and one-off sculptural pieces, and he takes a small number of commissions and exhibitions each year.
I’m Richard. I make pots about the harbour.
Every piece starts as a bag of speckled stoneware and ends up carrying an animal I’ve watched — swans at Rozelle Bay, crabs in the mangroves, and the odd crocodile from trips further north. I throw one piece at a time, brush the drawings on in cobalt, and fire each one twice.
Nothing here is factory-made and nothing is repeated exactly. If a piece speaks to you, it’s the only one of its kind in the world.
Richard
Have something particular in mind? I take a small number of commissions each season.