About

There are artists who begin with a blank page, and there are artists who see a world already waiting beneath it. As far back as he can remember, Peter Bowen was fascinated by the act of making marks and turning an empty surface into something that appeared to possess a life of its own.

His father played an important role in nurturing that fascination. A skilled painter in oils and acrylics, he might easily have encouraged Peter to follow the same path. Instead, he urged him to learn the more demanding language of watercolour. Watercolour, with its delicate washes and sudden, irreversible decisions, offered no easy way back. A misplaced brushstroke could alter the entire mood of a picture. Yet, with patience and practice, even its uncertainty could be guided.

Alongside painting, ceramics have played an important part in Peter’s artistic development for more than 40 years. His exploration of earthenware and stoneware clay bodies led him into a different kind of creative investigation, one in which touch, heat and time become part of the process. Clay begins as something soft and changeable. It can be pressed, shaped, carved and persuaded into new forms, but it cannot be hurried. Once formed, it must be allowed to dry slowly, sometimes for about two weeks, before it is ready to enter the kiln.

There is an element of suspense in this transformation. A piece may look complete when it is placed inside the electric kiln, yet its final character remains unknown. The first firing, known as a bisque firing, takes about 14 hours. During this stage, the clay changes permanently and becomes a ceramic material. When it emerges, the piece is pure white, altered by fire and ready to receive its next layer of identity: the glaze.

“I enjoy making ceramics. Forming wet clay into a solid art form is like creating magic…!” Peter says. The comparison is apt. A shapeless mass becomes a functional form or a decorated object, but the process retains a sense of wonder. What appears to be an ordinary material gradually takes on a presence of its own. The kiln becomes less a machine than a place of revelation, where heat completes what the hands began.

Peter uses his own glaze recipes, which are lead-free and food-safe. Applying the glaze is a careful, patient task, often involving multiple coats. Each layer must dry until it is bone dry before the piece can face the kiln once more. In the second firing glazes bond to the ceramic body and form a glossy finish. Colours deepen, surfaces change and details that seemed quiet before the firing may suddenly become vivid.

As with watercolour, ceramics require both confidence and restraint. Too much pressure can distort the clay; too little may leave a form without character. A glaze can appear one way before firing and entirely different afterwards. The final result is shaped by decisions, materials and forces that cannot be completely controlled. For Peter, this uncertainty is not a flaw in the process. It is part of its fascination.

Art and ceramics complement each other, offering different routes into the same imaginative landscape. Drawing allows Peter to explore line, atmosphere and the peculiar poetry of forms. Clay gives him the opportunity to work in three dimensions, to create objects that can be held, examined and understood through touch as well as sight. Together, the two disciplines provide continual opportunities to test familiar ideas and explore new boundaries.

Over the years, Peter’s artistic work has been exhibited throughout North America and the United Kingdom. His paintings and ceramics have travelled far beyond the places where they were made, carrying with them the quiet intrigue of his vision. Yet the work remains personal and attentive to small details: the geometry of a wall, the texture of a surface, the movement implied by a line of washing or the soft uncertainty of colour spreading across paper.

Today, Peter continues to work primarily in ceramics, responding to customer orders and commissions while maintaining the curiosity that first drew him to art. His practice is not simply about producing an object; it is about following an idea until it reveals what it wants to become. A lump of clay may enter the kiln as a carefully shaped form and emerge as something altogether more unexpected.

Perhaps that is the thread connecting everything Peter Bowen makes: a belief that imagination is often found in ordinary places, provided one looks closely enough. Behind every window there may be a story. Beneath every glaze there may be a surprise. And in the quiet space between the artist’s intention and the material’s response, something new may be waiting to appear.

 

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