Richard Slee stands among the leading ceramic artists working in Britain today Highly respected amongst the craft community for his great technical mastery and attention to detail, it is nevertheless his more conceptual and intellectual works of recent years that have gained him the attention of a wider contemporay art audience.
While ceramics has remained Slee's primary medium, he has increasingly begun to incorporate new mediums within his works. 'Spade' is the result of spending time in the University of the West of England working with enamels. It is a testemant to the possibilities of a medium that has remained relatively overlooked within contemporary art practice. Slee utilises the familiar form of a garden spade, using the steel blade as a ground for a traditional landscape print, places so as to mimic the muddy section of the blade in use. Characteristic in its sympathy for the domestic, Spade poses questions about our romantic association with landscape and the land itself.