Biography

Robert Franklin lives and works in Bannockburn, near Cromwell, Central Otago. He was a studio potter for a decade in the 1970’s.
“My return to ceramics has been a very rewarding experience. Deciding to once again sit at a pottery wheel to see what happened released dramatic results. My knowledge and experience in studio pottery some thirty years ago remains within me in the head and hands but the pieces produced were like nothing that had gone before.
I now utilise that knowledge to create works in many of the genres of ceramics including, Raku, Saggar Firing, Stoneware and Porcelain and I exhibit locally and nationally. My work is strongly influenced by both Japanese and Chinese early ceramics. A visit to Japan to the village of Mashiko, the home of now deceased Japanese National Pottery Treasure Shoji Hamada was a highlight.
My work is an expression of form, finish and texture, more of the fire, and less of the glaze. I am not constrained by the demands of production but more by what flows from the hands on the day.”
“The true work of art is but a shadow of divine perfection”.
MICHELANGELO