Jonathan has exhibited internationally in various group and solo shows including Copenhagen; Agents of the 3D Revolution, FADA Gallery University of Johannesburg; Echo of Leach, Leach Pottery Museum St Ives; British Ceramics Biennial, Stoke-on-Trent; Taiwan Ceramics Biennial, Taipei; Formed, Djanogly Art Gallery, University Park, Nottingham; Pippin Drysdale & Jonathan Keep, Puls Contemporary Ceramics Brussels; Elements of Art and Science, Ars Electronica, Linz, Austria; crafted: objects in flux, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston; Random Growth - Contemporary European Ceramics, Phos Art + Design, London; Impression 3D, l’usine du future, Le Lieu du Design, Paris; The Best of British, Clay Gulgong, Australia; The First Central China International Ceramic Biennale, Henan, China.
Jonathan was born and grew up in South Africa, obtaining a BA Fine Art degree from the University of KwaZulu-Natal. In 1986 he moved to England and settled in Suffolk where he continues to live. He completed an MA from the RCA, where his postgraduate show was awarded the Lattice overall prize-winner award and subsequently, Jonathan was awarded a Woo Foundation Graduate Arts Bursary.
Jonathan Keep has long been compelled by the nuances within form such as curve, negative or positive space and volume expressed via the figures of the vessel or the pot. Borrowing from thematics within anthropology and even evolutionary biology, Jonathan’s work asks ‘why and how we respond to form’ and to what extent this response might be simultaneously universal, site-specific and culturally mediated. Dissecting the cultural reverence for European fine arts, Jonathan places the pot not as a utilitarian object but as a sculptural form, which bears an artistic function.
Jonathan creates what he calls analogue and digital pots. His digital pots, some of which are part of the ‘The Knot Series’, have been formed using computer code. This digital information that Jonathan creates is passed to a studio-based DIY 3D printer that he has adapted to print in clay. In Jonathan’s words ‘Layer by layer, the pots are printed out – a sort of mechanical pottery coil building’. Jonathan’s clay practice reveals digital code as a creative mode in itself. His Knot series, made through code drawn in virtual reality, captures the knots we tie ourselves to, revealing the pot as a medium for sculptural expression.
Jonathan has exhibited internationally in various group and solo shows including Copenhagen; Agents of the 3D Revolution, FADA Gallery University of Johannesburg; Echo of Leach, Leach Pottery Museum St Ives; British Ceramics Biennial, Stoke-on-Trent; Taiwan Ceramics Biennial, Taipei; Formed, Djanogly Art Gallery, University Park, Nottingham; Pippin Drysdale & Jonathan Keep, Puls Contemporary Ceramics Brussels; Elements of Art and Science, Ars Electronica, Linz, Austria; crafted: objects in flux, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston; Random Growth - Contemporary European Ceramics, Phos Art + Design, London; Impression 3D, l’usine du future, Le Lieu du Design, Paris; The Best of British, Clay Gulgong, Australia; The First Central China International Ceramic Biennale, Henan, China.Jonathan was born and grew up in South Africa, obtaining a BA Fine Art degree from the University of KwaZulu-Natal. In 1986 he moved to England and settled in Suffolk where he continues to live. He completed an MA from the RCA, where his postgraduate show was awarded the Lattice overall prize-winner award and subsequently, Jonathan was awarded a Woo Foundation Graduate Arts Bursary.Jonathan Keep has long been compelled by the nuances within form such as curve, negative or positive space and volume expressed via the figures of the vessel or the pot. Borrowing from thematics within anthropology and even evolutionary biology, Jonathan’s work asks ‘why and how we respond to form’ and to what extent this response might be simultaneously universal, site-specific and culturally mediated. Dissecting the cultural reverence for European fine arts, Jonathan places the pot not as a utilitarian object but as a sculptural form, which bears an artistic function.Jonathan creates what he calls analogue and digital pots. His digital pots, some of which are part of the ‘The Knot Series’, have been formed using computer code. This digital information that Jonathan creates is passed to a studio-based DIY 3D printer that he has adapted to print in clay. In Jonathan’s words ‘Layer by layer, the pots are printed out – a sort of mechanical pottery coil building’. Jonathan’s clay practice reveals digital code as a creative mode in itself. His Knot series, made through code drawn in virtual reality, captures the knots we tie ourselves to, revealing the pot as a medium for sculptural expression.
