Overview

I live on the south coast of England in Eastbourne in the foothills of the South Downs. I work in my home studio two days aweek. The other three days are spent teaching art in a local school. I live with my husband, a maths teacher and bee keeper, and our two lovely cats, our dog and lizard.

I create hand formed porcelain for the interior, my inspiration for these pieces are vintage fabrics and wallpapers, interesting textures and the aesthetic of the French countryside. My work is all individually crafted, the makers hand is clearly visible. My palette is largely neutral this means that they fit well into different environments. I try to make my work affordable but at the same time unique and bespoke. Every piece is different. Much of this work feeds from my larger sculptural pieces, aesthetically they are in dialogue with each other, they are cousins in the same family.

My larger hand built ceramics are made in stoneware and porcelain and explore a long-standing interest in themes of growth and expansion. Tall, sinuous, elegant vessels – curved and poised forms, investigating the unfurling of a leaf, the contours of the human body. This interest in the ‘organic’, coupled with exploration of the impact of development, industry, and mass-production, has developed into a fascination with opposites and conflicting ideas – organic, inorganic; clean, dirty; pure, tainted; extravagant; moderate. These pieces take many hours to create, I consider this work to be more subjective; through it I explore themes surrounding the role of ceramics in society. I draw from the rich heritage of ceramics and from the contemporary world. This is a work in progress and is constantly in flux.

I am interested in the development of ceramics it’s role in contemporary society and it’s future in an ever changing world. I update my blog http://annecastanoceramics.blogspot.co.uk/ and twitter https://twitter.com/#!/AnneCastano weekly with posts exploring various themes. Please take a look and feel welcome to leave comments.

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