About
Debbie Barber makes highly decorative ceramics: bowls, vases and sculptural ceramics, principally bird forms, and featuring various techniques: sgraffito, incising, printing and moulding. Her ceramic forms are either hand-built or slip cast, then press moulded and altered. Coloured slips and underglazes are used to build her subtle hues. She’s developed her chosen techniques, pushing the boundaries of what can be achieved in forming, glazing and firing, and developed a recognisable style.
Debbie has had a life-long interest in ceramics, her continuing interest in and commitment to surface pattern reflecting the influences of a textile background. In new work she has moved away her long preference for Raku firing to entirely new techniques. Surfaces are now very complex with texture and colour – underglazes are painted or sponged, removed, blended or sanded, to create the right surface and depth of colour. Her birds sit on very elaborate bases, much inspired by antique Chinese wallpapers. These bases are either carved directly, or imprinted via patterns carved into plaster blocks which are then used to imprint the clay.
Debbie says, “Creating decorative objects is uplifting and nourishes the soul.”
Debbie lives and works in Leicestershire and joined Design-Nation in 2011.
