Nicola Tassie trained as a painter at the Central School of Art and Design, London but took up ceramics soon after graduating. Her practice traverses both sculptural ceramics and domestic wares, exploring the multiple possibilities of clay through its material history, and its current position within the contemporary artworld. Wall-based works such as the ceramic 'canvases' represent traditional slip trailing techniques using a contemporary colour pallet, whilst the extruded coils in 'Doodling' extends the process of drawing three-dimensionally out from the wall. Other recent works have expanded out of the usual interior domestic scene to consider the exterior landscape. 'Haltadans' seeks to replicate the organic forms of stones and pebbles.
Individually thrown, sealed vessels are re-formed to connect together in an ambitious site-responsive manner. Her use of ceramic colour -with its multiple surface possibilities from absorption to reflection, -shows an acute understanding of glaze an its relationship to form. These 'Landscape' works can serve as trails, boundaries and entries - between ideas of containment and aspiration; the natural and cultural; and the contested definition between craft and art.