Spore Stack: An ocean themed ceramic sculpture
With its dark, star-shaped base and eruptive vertical elements, this sculpture conjures imagery from deep-sea vents, volcanic terrain, or a speculative alien botany. Deep charcoal-black clay grounds the composition in a heavy stillness, while vibrant orange tendrils spiral upward—textured like coiled bark, sea sponges, or curled flames. Small yellow nodules cluster at their base, adding an element of microbial or coral-like complexity.
The tension between form and surface—the matte darkness against fiery saturation—evokes both life and decay, regeneration and combustion. The piece plays with contrasts: softness and rigidity, naturalism and fantasy, rootedness and explosion.
Part of an ongoing series exploring imagined ecologies, this work speaks to the resilience of form under pressure—how life might take hold in the most unlikely environments, vibrant and strange.
Title: Spore Stack
Medium: Ceramic, underglaze, oxide
Dimensions: 15 × 10 × 10 cm
Artist: Bob Acton
With its dark, star-shaped base and eruptive vertical elements, this sculpture conjures imagery from deep-sea vents, volcanic terrain, or a speculative alien botany. Deep charcoal-black clay grounds the composition in a heavy stillness, while vibrant orange tendrils spiral upward—textured like coiled bark, sea sponges, or curled flames. Small yellow nodules cluster at their base, adding an element of microbial or coral-like complexity.
The tension between form and surface—the matte darkness against fiery saturation—evokes both life and decay, regeneration and combustion. The piece plays with contrasts: softness and rigidity, naturalism and fantasy, rootedness and explosion.
Part of an ongoing series exploring imagined ecologies, this work speaks to the resilience of form under pressure—how life might take hold in the most unlikely environments, vibrant and strange.
Title: Spore Stack
Medium: Ceramic, underglaze, oxide
Dimensions: 15 × 10 × 10 cm
Artist: Bob Acton
With its dark, star-shaped base and eruptive vertical elements, this sculpture conjures imagery from deep-sea vents, volcanic terrain, or a speculative alien botany. Deep charcoal-black clay grounds the composition in a heavy stillness, while vibrant orange tendrils spiral upward—textured like coiled bark, sea sponges, or curled flames. Small yellow nodules cluster at their base, adding an element of microbial or coral-like complexity.
The tension between form and surface—the matte darkness against fiery saturation—evokes both life and decay, regeneration and combustion. The piece plays with contrasts: softness and rigidity, naturalism and fantasy, rootedness and explosion.
Part of an ongoing series exploring imagined ecologies, this work speaks to the resilience of form under pressure—how life might take hold in the most unlikely environments, vibrant and strange.
Title: Spore Stack
Medium: Ceramic, underglaze, oxide
Dimensions: 15 × 10 × 10 cm
Artist: Bob Acton