Biographies > Larry Davidson

Larry Davidson is a ceramic artist. His work involves turning everyday items, like a cup or a teapot, into extraordinary objects that exalt life. He says functional guidelines set limits that the artist can explore and stretch. The teapot in the TAG collection is clearly a teapot but expresses an aggression and attitude not usually associated with such objects. When he worked in Japan, he found shards of pottery that were thousands of years old, in fields and on paths. He was moved that someone sat in that spot and made functional and symbolic pots so many generations before. He believes that it is important to participate in that endless cycle, by making and firing objects to be used in the preparation and serving of food.

In his pottery, Davidson has always used different processes like salt firing, wood firing and raku that involve higher risk and produce more random and surprising effects. In many ways his work is less about the finished object and more about the different processes which involve anticipation and success as well as failure and disappointment. Larry is always trying to move forward with this artwork by experimenting and persevering.

Larry Davidson lives and works in Acton, Ontario. Larry Davidson’s Teapot came into the TAG collection after hosting in 1990 an Ontario Crafts Council exhibition, Two Potters, featuring the work of Scott Barnim and Larry Davidson.>