Through 40 Years in Clay, nationally recognised maker Anna Lambert presents a new collection of handbuilt earthenware ceramics celebrating the landscape.
Influenced by a practice of landscape drawing, these works evoke Anna’s emotional attachment to place – her own valley in Yorkshire and the land around her mother’s home, amongst others.
She creates three-dimensional paintings through her work; carefully considered forms merge with surface scenes of trees, field edges and orchards. Assembling her pieces from slabs of clay, she then alters, cuts and fettles them, occasionally adding sections of texture from carved or linocut designs. Through her surface designs she explores narratives relating to climate change in the local landscape and the regeneration of orchards.
In this poignant exhibition, Anna explores a newfound sense of space, light and simplicity in her forms and surfaces. She also implements new colours made from mixing slips, oxides and body stains to bring more subtlety to her palette.
Adam Frew works in porcelain, creating thrown functional and large one-off pots. He revels in the spontaneity of throwing, the speed of production, seeking to reflect this energy in his distinctive mark making. These marks are continually evolving, but are always energetic and confident.
Adam works in contrasts: of lines or washes, glazed and unglazed, blues and oranges or reds and more recently, applied ridges. “A sense of energy has always been central to my work. Working with the clay in a way that is fluid and quick, and doesn’t require much reshaping.”
Charles Bound ‘s work is unconsciously influenced by significant periods of time spent in the USA, Africa, and the UK. Loose and elemental, it reflects the rugged landscape of Wales, particularly of the farm environment where he lives and works today.
Akiko Hirai makes largely functional ware using the Japanese tradition of allowing the clay itself to show the way in which it wants to be fired. She tries not to control her materials but to let them and the unpredictable environment of the kiln dictate much of the resulting shape and colour of her work.