Paul Maseyk: Naked

Paul Maseyk has become well known for his unique and very personal ceramics. Since completing his Diploma in Ceramic Design and Production at Wanganui in 1997, he has studied under some of the best-known NZ potters, including Barry Brickell and Ross Mitchell-Anyon. He first exhibited at AVID in a solo show in 2004.

Much of 2008 was spent in residency at the prestigious Archie Bray Centre for Ceramic Arts in Montana, USA.

“Maseyk’s practice has grown from a domestic output; in earlier years he had a reputation based around domestic ware which had a certain charm, but always an underlying sense that he felt limited by the process. In his words ‘I quickly realised that I was bored with constantly churning out pots, and if I wanted to continue I would need to make my own thing’. His own thing was finding a platform which would satisfy his need to present himself in his work – something which he discovered in the ancient Greek tradition of highly decorative, large scale ornamental vessels. Maseyk has never really reconciled the gestural glazing seen both in Anglo-Oriental and New Zealand pottery traditions with his own work, and the Grecian aesthetic offered a tradition more akin to his detailed and obsessive drawing style. Although early works directly referred to the mythology of Greek tradition, telling his own stories very soon became the core function of Maseyk’s pottery.” – Lucy Hammonds, Upstarts: knowledge and change in clay (2008).

His work can be seen in the collections of Te Papa Tongarewa, Wellington, Auckland Museum, The New Dowse, Porirua and Waikato Museum.

Paul continues to make a range of domestic ware as well as his more sculptural works.