Reviews

Here is what others have to say about my work.

It is a rare pleasure to work with someone who is passionate about what they do. As a curator it has been my pleasure to work with many passionate people as the ceramics sector is well endowed with passion. I think that is one of the most persuasive and enchanting reasons to be engaged in the sector.

Megan Puls is a passionate artist wholly committed to her practise. I have known Megan for many years and never cease to be swept up in her enthusiasm for her work. Several months ago we started discussing LANDLINE as a major solo exhibition for her in 2009. Megan’s relationship to landscape as both an image and texture is a strong part of her visual language. Megan is also directly involved with landscape as both an interactive and interpretative experience.

This show is a punctuation point in Megan’s career – this is new work with new challenges and it is a large body of work exploring new constructions , technical challenges blending clays and colourants with other materials; firing challenges with “additives” let alone the relationship to image, landscape and the natural environment.

Megan has concentrated on her making for this show from February 1 this year – we are privileged to get some insight into Megan’s work process through her directory piece which encapsulates her notes, sketches and technical tests for this show.

Loss rates have been substantial due to pushing the porcelain and layering with other clays and ‘additions’. Megan has never sat on her laurels – she is constantly challenging herself and by extension her audience.

This is a beautiful show of exquisite objects in delightful relationships, It is a beautifully made show that also exhibits great technical skill as well as strong conceptual rationale. It is indeed a body of work by a very articulate artist. I am very proud to have been associated with this artist and her development of this work. I congratulate Megan on this exhibition and commend it wholeheartedly to you.

LANDLINE is a wonderful show to start your relationship with this artist or a great show to continue your relationship with Megan Puls.

Stephanie Outridge Field

Fusions Gallery, Brisbane

And another…

Megan Puls is one of the Gold Coast’s most successful potters. She established herself 15 years ago on the Mid North Coast of New South Wales and behind this success, like many accomplished artists, lie many years of hard work, and perhaps more importantly, many years of learning and experience.

Megan was attracted to pottery at an early age and consequently took it up seriously in her early 20′s. She began making domestic ware and immediately found a market for her work, becoming well known locally where she continued making domestic ware for the next 12 years.

From the Mid North Coast she moved to the Gold Coast and took a job as a production potter at a well known local gallery. Here she spent many hours at the wheel learning the proficiencies of this art which underpin all that she does now. Out of this experience came the ability to throw very large pieces, much larger than a person of her size would normally throw. On some days she would throw in excess of 150 pieces! From domestic ware she moved on to garden ware and then into her preferred area of large bowls, platters and one off exhibition pieces. Megan describes that time as being professionally a very happy period of her life.

The next stage came in August 1996 when she decided to open her own studio at Clagriaba. This has been a very rewarding decision, and she now exhibits regularly in galleries all over Australia. Her first major exhibition was at the Bruce Watling Galleries on the Gold Coast at which she exhibited 80 pieces and sold virtually all of them.

This exhibition showed her “Lava Flow Collection” which was so named because of the predominant copper red glazes she used. She also used white shino and black oxide glazes, many of which were combined in such a way as to produce brilliant, and at times dramatic effects of great beauty. She fired these pieces so that the glazes crawled and gathered, forming hills and craters typical of the effects of hot lava.

“I liken the forces of a volcano to the forces of a kiln, as they both change the nature of the substances within them forever.”

Megan has now taken this theme a step further. While remaining with these same basic glazes she has produced her next series which she has called “The Obsidian Obsession.” Obsidian is a glassy black volcanic rock. Megan’s new work exemplifies the nature of this rock through the clay and glazes she shapes via the heat of the volcano (her kiln).

“New forms are created from the hot lava flow. They begin as white hot, then change to red and then ultimately to obsidian black.”

Recently for her large wheel thrown vessels and platters she has used white stoneware and raku clays combined with a palate of Shino, Japanese Copper Red and Raku glazes. All of these pieces are reduction fired to 1300 degrees centigrade, pushing the clays and the glazes to the limit.

“My focus and inspiration come from the core of the earth” she says which she then likens to the core of human creativity, “as the volcano erupts and the lava begins to flow, new forms are created.”

She has not been content to remain stationary in her work. To anybody observing her work over the last few years, considerable change is evident. What she is doing with glazes is superb. She will continue to move forward at this remarkable pace and the sky is her limit.

Gordon Foulds

Ceramic Art Critic

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