About David Usher
David Usher has been a practising artist for over 30 years. He began his studies at Seven Hills Art College in Brisbane in 1983. His dual creative interests are ceramics and painting and through his contact and relationship with Monica and commencing in 1986, he started working at Kitty Art Pottery in Albion, Brisbane where he worked as a technician, glazing pots, loading kilns and first learning to wheel-throw. Usher continued to work in Kitty Breeden's ceramics studio until Master Potter Errol Barnes, who had founded Lyrebird Ridge Pottery, located in the Gold Coast Hinterland in 1975, offered him a trainee/mentoring opportunity in his studio/workshop.
Usher packed up his family at the beginning of 1987 and moved to Springbrook. He spent the next 3 years learning the craft and during this time began to paint his own images onto the ceramic forms that Errol was making and some of his own forms. He was fortunate to be in the right place at the right time because during this period Barnes began collaborating with a key group of Ray Hughes Gallery artists, including William Robinson, Joe Furlonger, Bill Hay, Tony Twigg, Robert Moore, Michael Barnett, Gavin Chilcott. Usher's role at the time was to provide technical support to the visiting artists, and in this role he had the opportunity to get to know the artists and watch them work. These experiences helped to forge his own practice and he was encouraged by the others to 'paint your life', telling his story through his arts practice and subsequently exhibiting with other artists from this period, most recently holding a joint exhibition with Joe Furlonger.
My memories of starting at Lyrebird Ridge Pottery was travelling to Mudgeeraba (Gold Coast) and heading inland to drive up a narrow winding road. Once in Springbrook we turned off the bitumen onto Lyrebird Ridge Road and drove up an even narrower dirt road eventually arriving in the mists of the mountain at a slab-built structure located deep in the beautiful rainforest. I don't think it was actually raining at the time, but it was all very wet and lush and overgrown. Errol met us and showed me through the pottery building, there were four or five wheels set up in a row each with a throwing rack and facing out toward the coast where you could catch glimpses of Burleigh Heads in the distance. Behind the wheels was a 80 cubic foot top-hat kiln firing away. In the recent extension to the workshop Errol was building a 96 cubic foot twin shuttle kiln.
My first job in the pottery was to unpack the 20 kilo bags of Feeney's stoneware and run the clay through the pug-mill using a wire harp to weigh up individual pieces in preparation for the production throwing of the range of functional pots. I remember Cameron Williams was still there at the time but was about to move away to set up his own workshop. Cameron was already throwing these beautiful large forms which he is now renowned for. When not busy preparing clay, I would spend time watching Errol throw as an important step toward learning the finer points of the craft. When I began to throw, I firstly made pate pots then mugs, which were mostly recycled until they were good enough to fire. Eventually moving on to making larger forms and painting my own images on selective pieces. In my time there I met many other artists and artisans who came through the studio, a number of whom I still have contact with.
The three years I spent at LRP between 1987 -1990 were invaluable to developing my skills as a craftsperson and gaining a greater understanding of contemporary arts practice. They were years of learning the discipline of practice and sharing a studio with other artists which I treasure, it was a privilege to be there at that time and these encounters have subsequently formed the foundation of my ongoing arts practice.
David, Monica and Libby Springbrook 1988
Moving back to Brisbane in 1990 to set up a studio with his wife Monica. David began exhibiting his works in Brisbane in 1993, beginning with exhibitions at AMFORA Gallery, Michael Burke Gallery, and then exhibiting at Doggett St. Gallery for over 15 years. Usher is now represented by Alexandra Lawson Gallery and has held over 20 solo shows while being involved in numerous groups exhibitions both internationally and in Australia.
His current work focuses on time spent on travelling throughout Australia and painting en plein air before returning to the studio and making pots and reinterpreting the en plein air works into new works that represent these experiences. Usher states, 'it's critical to paint/make a mark with intent, when I am on the road, working en plein air, I am only interested in capturing the atmosphere of the site rather than a literal representation. His aim is to translate the emotion of the experience into paint. Usher's work is a kind of tumult of brush strokes and building forms about the landscape, 'I am striving to capture the immediacy/energy of the scenes before me, before the moment vanishes.'
Usher's approach to painting is to grind the brush across surfaces conveying the endless momentum of the landscape and the corresponding light upon surfaces. The building of layers and forms pushes shapes into trees, undergrowth and concealed spaces until they begin to emerge as the shapes of trees and rocks and creeks. These abstracted landscapes capture the artist's resolve to deliver paintings (and pots) that ultimately invite the observer to interpret scenes in their own way, letting the images slowly reveal information to the viewer.
David Usher is represented by Alexandra Lawson Gallery
Artist Statement
My arts practice is focused on the Australian landscape and translating experiences of being in this landscape through the mediums of paint and clay. This process involves trips to various locations to stop a while and translate the 'landscape' encounters into paintings and ceramic forms. The creative emphasis being to paint various scenes as an immediate response which captures the essence of a place and translates my Australian landscape adventures into new works, this is achieved through producing multiple studies and taking them back to the studio to consider and develop. I invite the spectator to engage with these completed works and that they will in turn evoke recollections of their own landscape expeditions.
Key influences here, in both a contemporary and historic context, are Joe Furlonger, Euan McLeod, William Robinson, Errol Barnes, Grace Cossington Smith, Lucy Culliton, Sidney Nolan, Milton Moon, Charmaine Pyke, Leo Robba, Idris Murphy and Ivor Hitchens. My ongoing practice is situated within these diverse creative parameters, the Australian landscape continues to be a very immersive and rewarding subject matter.
Biography
David Usher's arts practice utilises the mediums of clay and paint to reimagine and reinterpret the experiences of being immersed in the Australian landscape. Usher's experiences and stories are drawn from family connections to remote locations situated in Western Queensland, places he returns as often as possible to paint en plein air. As a part of this process, it is critical to his process that the mark-making is intuitive and undertaken with an intent to capture the energy of the moment. The en plein air studies once completed are taken back to the studio where these works act as a point of departure for larger paintings and ultimately the making of ceramic forms that will complement the paintings. It is important to the development of new works that Usher becomes fully engaged in the act of painting as the work needs to retain an immediacy or capture something of the intrinsic energy that being immersed in the landscape brings.
Usher's work seeks to celebrate the 'landscape' experience, and the observer is invited to interpret or overlay their own experiences of traveling through the Australian landscape into his works.