MAREK PITERA

In 2004, with little prior knowledge of ceramics or art, I came across a small stoneware bottle at an exhibition. It was made by the late Bill Marshall of the St. Ives pottery. Its understated beauty struck me immediately and sparked a growing interest in ceramics that gained momentum and after ten years led me to change from my former profession as a medical diagnostician to that of  a studio ceramicist.

 

My working introduction to clay was at KCC in West London, followed by two years at City Lit in Holborn for the diploma in ceramics. During that time, my knowledge and appreciation of ceramics was greatly expanded, particularly to include sculptural ceramic art and fine art as a whole. During this time, I developed a taste for modernist art, architecture and design and ancient Japanese and Korean pottery. Although these disciplines may seem quite diverse, I believe that they have  common ground in their approach to restraint and understated beauty. I spent the next few years in intensive research, developing my working methods, my own aesthetic voice and teaching myself kiln building, reduction firing and making and refining clay bodies. In 2020, I built a new studio with two kilns of my own construction. 

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Having strong respect for both studio pottery and contemporary sculptural ceramics, I did not feel bound to any single tradition and set out to develop the most authentic means of expressing my aesthetic. It was to take about two more years after the studio build until I felt that my work was beginning to achieve this goal to my satisfaction. I consider the continual improvement and refinement of this to be a lifelong ongoing quest. I believe that as we age and acquire experience and wisdom, it leaves its mark on everything we do, usually in a positive way.

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I live in West London where I work from my studio, a London brick outbuilding overlooking a garden planted to enhance the changes of the seasons, something that undoubtedly leaves its own mark on my work.