Opening reception - Friday 13 September 2024, 6-8.30 pm
The Sunday Painter is pleased to announce the forthcoming opening of 'Angus Suttie,’ a retrospective exhibition that casts a revelatory light on the innovative ceramic works of Angus Suttie (1946 – 1993) —a trailblazing visionary within the New Ceramics movement. Suttie's audacious and dynamic hand-built ceramics were significant contributions to postmodern art from the 1970s onward, celebrated for their whimsical and amorphic forms. Transcending beyond utilitarian pottery and the conventional boundaries of clay, his pieces delved into universal themes of mortality, sexuality, and social critique, synthesising ancient ceramic traditions with modern sensibilities. To the UK pottery establishment, Suttie’s evocative and celebratory works represented exuberance, boldness, and freedom, paving the way for a new wave of artistic expression.
Born in a rural Eastern Scottish village in 1946, Angus Suttie gravitated towards London in the late 1960s, where he began experimenting with ceramics. In 1975 he enrolled at the Camberwell School of Art, delving into the experimental ethos that defined the institution during that period. An active member of both the Gay Liberation Front (GLF) and later the Gay Left, Suttie immersed himself in the city's subculture, embracing his multifaceted identity as a working-class gay man and passionate activist. His deeply personal practice transcended the boundaries between functional object and sculpture, emanating an undeniable vibrancy that reflected the nuances of his lived experience. As American West Coast ceramist Scott Chamberlin wrote in 1994, “For years in conversations with Angus, he spoke about the struggle to get his work to be more reflective of his life as a gay man. He was looking for permission, longing for release.”
His hand-built works, characterised by surreal and profoundly amorphous forms, synthesised his interest in pre-Columbian architecture and pottery with contemporary aesthetics. Suttie aspired to create ceramics that could "shock us, console us, affirm life or haunt our psyches." Starting with familiar domestic forms such as the teapot, he conjured enigmatic, organic objects by employing vibrant colours and inscribing thought-provoking messages into them that subverted conventional meanings. ‘I started by wanting to make pots which were a reaction against the white, factory-produced earthenware available in every high street… I discovered vessels that were alive, appealing, moving, imaginative, witty, revealing pleasure in the making’, an article by Christopher Andreae records him saying. Suttie explored myriad forms, reimagining boxes, cups, saucers, altar pieces, spoons and rings through his uniquely fluid lens.
'Angus Suttie’ celebrates an artist whose work defied categorisation, embodying a fluidity that defied temporal and stylistic constraints. Tragically, his life was cut short in 1993 at just 46 years old due to an HIV-related illness, after a prolific but relatively brief career spanning little more than a decade. As illness became increasingly intertwined with his life, Suttie's artistic expression grew more monumental and sombre, his palette shifting to increasingly muted, subdued hues evoking the solemnity of pre-Columbian funerary sculpture. With their fluid, zigzagging forms and organic conduits, his later works are profoundly rooted in a celebratory exploration of life's universal forces – desire, love, sexuality, faith, and hope. Despite its brevity, Suttie's ceramic practice, coded with symbolism, served as a vital form of activism– amplifying the visibility of marginalised subcultures. His radical works championed self-expression, playfully reimagining and reclaiming traditional ceramic constraints.
The works of Angus Suttie (26 November 1946 – 17 June 1993) have been shown in major international shows and publications, as well as seventeen significant museum collections in the UK, Japan, Australia and Holland including: The Hepworth, Wakefield; Crafts Council, London; Ulster Museum, Belfast; Hertford County Collection; Australia Crafts Board, Sydney; ‘s-Hertogenbosch Museum, Netherlands; Victoria & Albert Museum, London; University of Wales, Aberystwyth; Bolton Museum and Art Gallery; Paisley Museum; Bedford County Council; Cleveland Crafts Centre, Middlesbrough; The British Council Collection; Museum of Contemporary Ceramic Art, Shigaraki, Japan.