Stephen Bird: fine line between comic and tragic

artist focuscontemporary ceramicscurating

Dec 10

I have previously made reference to my first encounter with Stephen Bird’s work in the basement galleries of The Scottish Gallery, but I didn’t mention that it was an accidental encounter. There was a private view of all the shows on for the Edinburgh Festival period and a friend of mine had a room of his delicate Japanese calligraphy-inspired abstract watercolours adjacent to the display of Bird’s Industrial Sabotage – Phase 3. So, it really was absolute chance, and the rest, as they say, is history. Except it isn’t. The rest led me to the present. In the meantime, Bird’s work has been on an amazing journey.

“Initially I looked at the emotional aspects of the figurines and then went on to explore political messages, prohibition and violence as a way of using ceramics to comment on sensitive current issues.”1

Bird’s early work got described, somewhat unfairly, as descending from a folk art lineage, but that drastically over-simplifies the melting pot of influences that he presented, played with and, ultimately, paid homage to. Bird’s early work covered everything from children’s toys to Hindu Gods to Native American totems, often covered in details and faces - but unlike in folk art, not just to fill space. As Bird’s work progressed, he made large-scale figures less often, but his use of illustration, humour and storytelling grew and developed.

“… it lures the viewer into a strange, adult ‘Alice through the Looking Glass’ world which is sometimes shocking but always captivating.”2

Like most of us, as Bird has matured and his life has become more settled (he now permanently resides in Australia rather than travelling between Sydney and Scotland) his work has become more focused and more aware of its place in the wider world. The other noticeable change in his work is his own presence within it: his features in the male faces, autobiographical elements in the characters and scenes, and nods to his children’s lives as they grew up.

“As I have grown older my mirror image has become so inadequate at expressing my identity, so I keep exploring other ways to create my portrait.”3

Quite a few of the artists whom I will be looking at for this exhibition use the form of plates as an extension of their sketchbook, getting an idea set down quickly, a way of sating the psychological impulses of artistic productivity, but no one uses plates quite like Bird. Some of his plates are complex vignettes, some are multi-scene stories produced over years, some are ways of perfecting a glaze (how to make it look like an egg or eyeballs, for example), but they are all utterly fascinating objects. In my mind, Bird’s plates with vignettes are inviting you to observe his world and stories closely, whereas his plates with just a single, enormous, Picasso-like, abstracted face on, are the opposite: they are in your house, watching your life.

“I like to explore the fine line between what is comic and what is tragic, and to make art which examines society’s taboos and dogmas and reveals some of the parameters of human existence.”4

His sculptural pieces have become less complex, visually and physically, using far fewer components, while the subject matter has become simultaneously darker and more satirical. The pieces in his last show at The Scottish Gallery in 2019 were more like snapshots of a story – either before or after the event alluded to in the title, but very rarely during it – rather than the full encapsulation of stories that he was achieving in his early sculptural pieces. There is still the nod to the Industrial Saboteur, the Bastard Son of Royal Doulton, with the inclusion of trees echoing lettuce ware, popularised in the 60s by virtue of being collected by Jackie Kennedy Onassis, and Toby jugs as portraits.

“Here was a ceramicist who did not throw pots but made comically tragic tableaux, which were quirky and poetically satirical.”5

“These moments are sometimes emotional, sometimes satirical, but are always presented in a way where the experiences the viewer perceives are the lived out truths of a very brutally honest person.”6

This exhibition is called Welcome To My World because all of the artists featured offer up their work as either a window into their personal world or story, or to their stylistic world, but not many do it as completely as Bird does. As I look through his exhibition catalogues spanning a 15-year period, Bird has created a stylistic world, adding both his stories and his personal world to it. It wouldn’t be that hard to write a continuous story that made sense from one object to the next, with a complex cast of characters that return repeatedly and some who are just cameos. The sub-heading of this exhibition is ceramics with narrative and Bird offers us so much narrative in his work, whether that is on one plate, one sculptural island, one figure or across several plates, several years or several components and faces.

“… Bird’s work is significant in the way it disguises its narrative purpose. As with ritual objects, Bird’s work functions in relation to social and communal aspirations.”7

These blog posts are published monthly, but if you want to access more exclusive content and to help my research, please consider supporting me on Patreon.

I also post photos daily to my Instagram profile.

Edited by Sarah McGill

1 – Stephen Bird; Industrial Sabotage – Phase 3; 2010; The Scottish Gallery

2 – John Monteleone; Stephen Bird: Bastard Son of Royal Doulton; 2015; Wollongong Art Gallery

3 – Stephen Bird; Stephen Bird: Kiln Gods; 2019; The Scottish Gallery

4 – Stephen Bird; Stephen Bird: Bastard Son of Royal Doulton; 2015; Wollongong Art Gallery

5 – Roger Law; Stephen Bird: My Dad Was Born On The Moon; 2013; The Scottish Gallery

6 – Sandy Hope; Stephen Bird: Kiln Gods; 2019; The Scottish Gallery

7 – Gregor White; Stephen Bird: Recent Ceramics; 2004; England & Co