Boat Vessel, 1995

Marcio Mattos

black stoneware, porcelain paper clay, under-glaze, and brushed glaze decoration

10.75" H x 22" W x 3.5" D

This Boat Vessel by Marcio Mattos embodies his love of jazz and improvisational music, and will bring those ideas into your home. Not only is the form of this vessel both unconventional and creative, but the dynamic brushstrokes of shimmery browns and greens across its surface create constant motion and visual interest. The Boat Vessel will serve as interesting and creative centerpieces for the table with the addition of flowers, or can stand alone as a sculptural object.

Artist Biography

The Brazilian-born Marcio Mattos studied acoustic guitar in early teens, eventually switching to double bass and cello after becoming interested in jazz. Later, Mattos entered the Villa-Lobos Institute where he became involved in improvisation and electronic music. Since moving to Europe in 1970, Mattos has performed, recorded, and broadcast in Britain and abroad with such musicians as Evan Parker, Keith Tippett, Derek Bailey, and Marilyn Crispell.

Marcio Mattos became fascinated with clay after seeing an exhibition of tea ceremony bowls at the V&A museum many years ago. He went on to train at Richmond College and later for a degree at Goldsmiths College. He presently creates one-off sculptural vessels and plaques in black stoneware and porcelain paper clay with dry-glazed textural surfaces and brushed decoration.

Marcio's early life as a teenager in Rio de Janeiro was punctuated by the presence of nature - the geography of the tropics. Visually, he was fascinated by the steep mountains that surround Rio and the horizontal expanse of the sea. His current work reflects these early impressions both in his tall, upright forms and fluid brushwork surface decoration.

Music was an important part of his youth: the Bossa Nova movement and later, jazz and contemporary classical music. "I bring into my ceramic work the same creative process which lies behind improvisation in music: the spontaneity and intuitive 'free-ness of the moment of creation and the search of the 'Perfect Imperfection'. I try to leave impressed in clay the immediacy of this process, both in texture and in form, emphasizing the sense of freedom and movement through bold brushwork." Marcio Mattos

Donated by the Grainer Family.

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