Standard Ware: Pots for Sale
18th November – 23rd December 2022
Hweg, Penzance
Bayliss’ exhibition at Hweg, a former pottery workshop in Penzance, comprises 130 pots of eight different designs, including teapots, jugs, mugs, coffee cups, yunomi cups, dinner plates, pasta bowls and cereal bowls. The title and inspiration stems from the standard ware model at the Leach Pottery, in St Ives, Cornwall, which dates back to the 1920s and continues to this day, where potters produce uniform batches of tableware for a domestic market.
Bayliss has refined many of the designs, such as Teapot (Positive Action / Radical Hope), over multiple iterations, spanning the past few years. The pots are decorated with traditional slipware techniques, using coloured liquid clay to create painterly surfaces, including Bayliss’ iconic slip-trailed sperms, and finished with clear glossy glaze.
The entire collection is presented on tables, like market stalls, and accompanied by a brochure, reminiscent of the early Leach Pottery catalogues. All pots were priced as modestly as possible, and immediately available to take away from the gallery. The sale commenced at the opening night, before going online the following day, as a way to favour a local audience first.
