Louise McNiff creates prints and produces hand-built ceramics in her studio, situated on the edge of the Derbyshire Peak District.
Her work is inspired by the landscape of the eastern moors where she loves to walk. Steep gritstone edges look down onto deep sweeping valleys. Patches of tree belt, stone walls, and hedges fragment the land. Ancient rock formations and abandoned mill stones are scattered across the vast open moorland. The shapes, marks and colours found in Louise's work are rooted in her connection to this dramatic landscape.
When working with clay, Louise uses techniques which draw on her background as a printmaker. Sgraffito lines are etched into leather-hard clay using handmade tools. Coloured slips are monoprinted, painted and stencilled to build layers of drawing, mark making and colour. Louise works intuitively, until she feels that she has reached a balance of colour, shape, line, and the experience of the landscape has been conveyed. The vessels are then taken to stoneware temperature for the final firing in an electric kiln.