Andrew Parker

I started my clay career in the mid seventies in New Zealand. I initially studied at the Otago Polytech School of Art and relocated to Australia in 1979 establishing a small studio in Sydney. I completed post graduate ceramics studies at East Sydney Tech (now the National Arts School).

In 1984 I relocated to Uralla and established a studio. In the late 80s I moved to my current location re-establishing another studio. I remained a full-time practitioner until the late 90s when I moved into arts administration and community development.

Qualifications include:

· Certificate of Ceramics – Otago Polytech School of Art, Dunedin NZ

· Post graduate diploma of ceramics – East Sydney Tech, Sydney NSW

· Post graduate diploma of community cultural development – Community Arts Network of South Australia.

My practice developed around ceramics, training and developing my skills initially in New Zealand before continuing further training and study in Australia prior to locating in Uralla in 1984.

My work developed largely around functional and one off exhibition ware which sold in thriving gallery venues up and down the eastern sea board of Australia through the eighties and nineties. During this period I participated in many group and solo exhibitions in Australia and overseas in Indonesia, New Zealand, USA and Japan.

I took a break from my ceramics career in the late nineties to pursue interests in community and cultural development, returning to creative practice in recent years. On returning to creative practice, opportunities have afforded me licence to, on occasions, depart from conventional ceramic processes to explore unfired clay and seed in decomposing clay forms placed in nature and to depart completely from clay to work with sticks, building willow bowers. The later projects have informed a departure from my previous function focus to a more whimsical and sculptural path explored in a recent solo show in New Zealand.

Over the past year I have built a new studio and will resume my clay practice and offer classes from spring 2021.