'Clay is just thick paint and paint is nothing but thin clay, painting helps the claywork, which helps the painting. If you look you can see a similar source that comes from within. That's the magic of it.' Inspired by this quote from the artist/potter Peter Voulkos my work attempts to express with paint my long relationship with clay, glaze, decoration and the firing process.

I respond to the immediacy of the material, its consistency, its texture, the question of working with my hands, and the physical involvement with the piece. It is a primal process, the essential direct contact through touch with the elemental, and at the moment, I find working with paint, gives me a larger space in which to move.

It is not about a narrative, or about producing an image from a fixed point of view, but rather reflects my interest in any surface that contains a history, rocks, whose original ancient surface has been profoundly modified by nature over millions of years, or perhaps walls, whose surfaces reflect our human marks and interventions. It also relates to the subconscious, and to the constant input of the everyday, our layers of memories, and also about any surface which supports our writings, our impressions, as well as the prosaic objects of our daily lives.

I search for, and hopefully sometimes create, another surface which contains a vitality, a life force, which may evoke through its abstract qualities this feeling of an exploration, an attempt to understand the hidden or the lost, and also to create another layer and depth of meaning, when others seek, and interpret for themselves.

Robyn has worked all her adult life as a potter and a painter. She has an extensive exhibition history in both areas. In 1983, she established South Creek Pottery with Jan Green, as well as Clay Things Potters Gallery, a long-running co-operative gallery.