Interview: Laurence Curtis

Matthew Macaulay (MM): In the work you're making now, do you find yourself returning to concerns or interests you had as a student?

Laurence Curtis (LC): Yes. I’ve always been interested in processes and materials—how they combine and transform into something else. When I was younger, I think I had stories running through my head as I worked, but the pieces didn’t necessarily contain narrative or imagery. That’s changed. Now, the work does have narrative and imagery, although I'm still figuring out exactly what they are. For the last 15 or 20 years, I’ve been focused on drawing—small 2D works with narrative and storytelling elements. When I returned to studio work, I intended to bring that figurative, narrative element into ceramics. I had a plan, but it was quickly abandoned. I went into freefall, allowing anything to happen. That’s how it’s been for the past couple of years—making all sorts of strange things. But now, things are beginning to coalesce again. The work is not dissimilar to what I made when I was younger, but it’s smaller, better made, more cohesive—and more imaginative.

MM: Some of your recent ceramic works look almost archaeological, like discovered artefacts—half tools, half weapons.

LC: That worries me a bit, but I also think about where I’ve spent my time. I grew up going to museums. My father used to take me—well, I took him, really. I wanted to go to the Hancock Museum, the Science Museum, the Laing Art Gallery. We'd go to the beach, but what I really looked forward to was the Hancock—an extraordinary ethnographic museum in Newcastle. Even now, I tend to go to collections like the British Museum rather than art galleries. I’ll visit galleries for specific artists, but I don’t wander them like I used to.

MM: So the idea of chronology or freshness in a gallery context isn’t particularly important to you?

LC: Not really. I’m not concerned with the chronology of an object. What matters is whether it connects with me. I look at things, draw them, and take photographs—not mindlessly, like some museum-goers snapping everything without looking. I study the objects first, then photograph to take the experience back to the studio.

MM: Your studio is quite densely packed, almost like a corridor. Does that environment shape the scale or nature of your work?

LC: Absolutely. I make work to fit the space. If my studio were bigger—say, 20 by 30 feet—I’d likely be making larger pieces, possibly out of wood or plaster instead of ceramics. But ceramics has a permanence that I like. You can bury it. Someone might dig it up in 10,000 years and—even in pieces—the idea is still there.

MM: Are you planning to bury your work?

LC: No, but I do like that notion of permanence.

MM: You said your recent works are “coalescing.” Do you mean they are combining physically into one piece, or more conceptually?

LC: Conceptually. In my mind, there’s one object I’m always trying to make. It changes from day to day, but the underlying concerns are the same—I’m refining ideas and trying to perfect something.

MM: Are your pieces pre-planned, or do you work more intuitively?

LC: I used to draw every day—sometimes just for the image, sometimes to figure out problems with a piece I wanted to make. Now that I’m back in the studio, I draw less. The making is the drawing. It’s a three-dimensional form of drawing. There are two distinct paths now: the drawing path, which includes large works in graphite and turps, and the making path. They relate, but their materials take them in different directions. I’ve always liked subtractive processes—scratching, rubbing out, taking away.

MM: When did drawing become central to your practice?

LC: When it works, when it’s really good, it becomes automatic. There's no barrier between the brain and the hand—just direct thinking through making. It doesn’t even have to be pencil on paper. It could be crumpling or tearing. That immediacy is vital.

MM: Do you set up your environment to encourage that kind of flow?

LC: Yes. It doesn’t just happen. You have to prepare: lay out your tools, get the surface ready. Even if you don’t know what you're going to make, the conditions have to be right. This morning, for example, I went into the studio intending to fire some work. I looked at a piece for about an hour and thought, "I can do that better." I rummaged through my clay scraps and spent the entire morning building something new—completely unplanned.

MM: Your studio looks chaotic but clearly functions well.

LC: There’s a system. I know where everything is. Paul Klee said we work from chaos toward order. That idea has stayed with me since I was a teenager. I remember being struck by his work on a Sonny Rollins album cover. Later, I picked up a book—Ten Der Hunts—and there he was again. He’s been with me ever since.

MM: Do you think your education emphasised craftsmanship?

LC: We weren’t taught directly, not really. We had technicians who shared information. I actually learned more after I graduated. When I started teaching ceramics, I had to figure it out properly. I went back to John Bailey—who hadn't taught me to throw at the time—and he gave me lessons after I left college.

MM: Some of your pieces resemble architectural models. Has architecture been an influence?

LC: Yes, massively. I wanted to be an architect before I ever thought about being an artist. But I was dyslexic, and my maths skills—aside from geometry and trigonometry—were poor. My dad was a maths teacher, and he couldn't understand why I struggled. But I’ve always loved buildings and the idea that they can shape society. A friend who’s an architect recently visited my studio. He said, “What kind of architect would you have been?” He saw something architectural in the work immediately.

MM: You’ve drawn Coventry’s iconic "Elephant" building—do elements like that filter into your work?

LC: Sometimes. I made some overtly architectural pieces a year ago, but I pulled back. When things become too obvious, I tend to edit heavily or discard them. But Coventry’s had a huge influence on me. I grew up here. It was a clean, modern city. That aesthetic has stayed with me.

MM: Do you think about the viewer when making your work?

LC: Not usually. For many years I didn’t show work at all, and when I did, I just put it up and walked away. But this Classroom Gallery show is different—I know many of the people who’ll see it, and that changes things. Especially those from Coventry—they’ll bring their own experiences to the work.

MM: I can see how elements from the city—oxidised metals, decaying surfaces—relate to your glazes.

LC: Yes, that patina, that sense of time weathering a surface—that's very important to me. Like Brancusi, whose sculptures weren’t symmetrical but had a stance, buildings have postures. They age, gain character, even sag with time. That’s beautiful.

MM: Speaking of Brancusi—how important were artists like him?

LC: Very. I learned to say his name properly eventually! I saw his work at the Tate and later at his studio in the Pompidou Centre. My first trip to the Tate was at 16. I hitchhiked to London just to see a Salvador Dalí painting I’d found in a book. I was disappointed by how small it was, but then I discovered Matisse, Giacometti, and Brancusi. That was a turning point.

MM: When you started at art school, did you identify with a particular discipline?

LC: I just wanted to make things—three-dimensional things. The word for that was “sculpture.” But I also wanted to be an illustrator, theatre designer, architect... Sculpture is the one thread that’s stayed with me.

MM: Did you experiment with computers at some point?

LC: Briefly. I’ve always loved geometry—how man-made structures can be subverted by nature. In the ’70s, I attended an evening class taught by Clive Richards at Coventry School of Art. We used punch cards to create computer drawings. I remember producing a drawing of a trumpet using code, which we sent to the Polytechnic to be processed. It would take six weeks to get the image back. I thought, “I’m not waiting six weeks for a picture of a trumpet!” So that was that.