Pot Kettle Black

In the hands of Wellington ceramicist Richard Stratton, the humble teapot transcends its origins to become high art.

- Anthony Byrt

The fact that New Zealand’s premier pottery prize, the Portage Ceramic Awards, was won in 2017 by a teapot, seems initially like a pretty dreadful condemnation of the state of contemporary New Zealand ceramics. But there are teapots, and then there are Richard Stratton teapots. “Anna Miles [Stratton’s art dealer] says I’m teapot-hardwired,” Stratton tells me, sitting in his Wellington studio. “It’s one of my go-to forms. I get on the wheel and think, what am I going to make, and it turns into a bloody teapot!”

His teapots, and his vessels in general, are things of domestic wonder. His prizewinning ‘Forced turn Teapot’ is a proto-Brutalist object made from interlocking pieces – like cogs fallen out of a giant Soviet-era clock. The colour, somewhere between black clay and Corten steel, is a direct result of his research into 18th-century pottery processes – in this case, British basaltware. And it’s finished with an absurdly delicate handle-and-spout combo, with plenty of Alice in Wonderland (Disney version) in its upturned little tip.