Faculty pottery on display at CAAD this month

Sharjah, UAE. February 18, 2019—A collection of handmade pottery from the newly refurbished ceramics studio in the College of Architecture, Art and Design (CAAD) at American University of Sharjah (AUS) will be on display for the rest of the month, highlighting the exceptional work of Professor of Architecture and Foundations instructor Brian Dougan.

Dougan, who teaches design and drawing studios to first-year students as part of CAAD's Foundations Program, has just returned from a fall semester sabbatical during which he focused on producing pottery.

Dougan arrived in Sharjah 15 years ago and began teaching a pottery elective to CAAD students in 2014. He operates a pottery studio at his villa on campus and in his home in Rhode Island in the USA.

“The CAAD Labs is home of a well-equipped and freshly renovated pottery studio, and there is a persistent stream of excellent work coming out of the facility, especially over the spring semester,” said Dougan.

“The pottery on display is a collection of predominantly lidded jars made and fired in the CAAD labs ceramics studio over the past year. Some of my pieces were part of an exhibition held in Abu Dhabi last year, entitled Ramadan Arcade, which was curated by Giuseppe Moscatello from Sharjah Art Foundation. Other pieces were demonstrations in the ART 280 course, which I teach at CAAD every spring semester,” he said.

All the pieces are glazed earthenware terracotta decorated with clay slip from Ras Al Khaimah and Pakistan using a technique called scrafitto, which sees the artist applying two successive layers of contrasting slip or glaze to an unfired ceramic piece, then scratching it so as to reveal parts of the underlying layer.

The collection will be on display in the College of Architecture, Art and Design facilities until February 28, 2019.

For more information about CAAD and the ART 280 pottery elective, visit www.aus.edu/caad.

ENDS