Frances Brosnan studied Fine Art in Bray Institute of Further Education completing a BA Honours Degree in Ceramic Art and 3D Design form West Wales School of the Arts. As a young girl growing up in Dublin Frances was greatly encouraged by her mother to involve herself in the creative process, which in turn led to a lifelong interest and love of the arts. Frances has lived and worked in both the UK and Australia and completed an Advanced Certificate in Studio Textiles in Melbourne College of Textiles in 1992. Her work has been exhibited in Ireland and the UK and she was awarded the Mill Cove Award for Ceramics in 2010. She is employed as a staff artist in the Signal Arts Centre Bray and is a member of Ceramics Ireland, Visual Artists Ireland, and registered with both the CCOI and Artlinks. She has been featured in publications including The Best of Irish Ceramic Sculpture (Published in June 2011). In March 2012 she will have a residency at the Cill Rialaig Artists’ Retreat in County Kerry.
Frances is always interested in exploring new opportunities and ways of working with clay and is particularly interested in designing and creating individual ceramic artwork. At the moment she is experimenting with the process of printing onto clay using decal images and monoprinting. One of her aims is to pass on her love of clay to other people as she believes it is a wonderful medium to work with.
I employ mainly hand building methods in my ceramic process as it gives me greater flexibility. Clay is extremely tactile and lends itself very much to mark making and textures. Colour and texture are very important and I enjoy experimenting with and incorporating them into my work. The use of mixed media with ceramics is an ongoing and fascinating challenge and I use a combination of decals, wire and other materials as a means of expression. I create individual sculptural pieces, wall hangings and vessels. I am drawn to Porcelain for its qualities of translucency, purity and delicacy and use it to make sculptural pieces and translucent vessels. Inspiration is derived from a range of sources and I am always looking for objects that I can use to make marks and texture in clay.
