Verity Newman

I completed my First Class Honours Degree in Art practice in 2001, specializing in sculptural ceramics. My work is mainly figurative, fuelled by a love of myth and legend. I am intrigued by the narratives of human life.
Working mainly in recycled clay, I create Paperclay and enjoy being able to transform a waste product into sculptural form. Paperclay methods also allow me to incorporate found or dug clays from around the world into the clay body. I like the notion of ceremony that this collecting can offer to my work, to me it echoes the idea that we are the stuff of stars, that our own human bodies are formed from the matter of the universe.
Currently I am making a series of stacking figures that thread individual components onto secured metal rods to allow height with stability. An example are the Idefolk, as some of the clay was dug at Ide near Exeter.
I enjoy working at speed, as if telling a story by hand. I will also sometimes incorporate glass, and will finish work with oxides, slips engobes and glaze.
I am a member of South West sculptors, Totnes and Dartington Open Studios group and I also have work in the National Ceramics Collection of Wales.