Clay in Conversation 2: Body is the second in a series of curated conversations, presenting artists working with clay and ceramics
The curated conversations provide a platform for presentation, dialogue and discovery, bringing together a diverse range of artists with a practice in clay and ceramics.
Each conversation centres on a specific theme - acting as a lens through which the artists will present a single piece of work or project. The conversations offer the opportunity to dig deeper into a single work, exploring it formally, materially and conceptually, from the perspective of the artists themselves.
The presentations are followed by a Q&A session with the audience.
Clay in Conversation is curated by artist Julia Ellen Lancaster generously supported by Potclays and hosted by Makerversity
Book tickets here
For this second conversation we are very pleased to present artists Jane Millar and Kim L Pace, with Tessa Peters acting as chair.
Jane Millar makes wall-based ceramic sculpture, working within a new context of contemporary ceramics, and starts with the idea of energy within the unseen interior of a ceramic object, and its actions on a surface. The work explores a territory between ideas of what is natural and unnatural; between plant, material culture, body, and earth.
For Clay in Conversation Millar will present 'Pacify', one of an ongoing series of installations involving wall painting and ceramic works, commissioned for the exhibition 'In (Matters of Soul'), ASC Gallery, November 2021. While making peculiar 'unlocatable' ceramic objects, usually wall based, Millar puts them into a context of a pedagogical structure, in this case transient wall painted shapes, referencing museum infographics from Natural History displays, which contextualises the slow life of ceramic sculptures.
Previous projects include Votive, with the Clayworkers Union for the Thames Festival; Space Shift at APT Gallery; Fuzzy Objects at San Mei Gallery, Brixton; Pretty Ugly at Thameside Studios and Sarah Staton's Supastore: Sunshine and Slingbacks, South London Gallery, 2021. Millar is a member of the Associated Clayworkers Union.
Kim L Pace’s chosen works are from her solo show ‘Kindred’, 2022 at Arusha Gallery, Edinburgh. ‘Kindred’ explored kinship, especially entanglements between the human & non-human.
Pace’s practice focuses on the creation of ceramic sculpture in installation; describing an increasingly immersive world, populated by uncanny characters. Beginning life as hieroglyphic textures or marks in clay, the characters are fleshed out through multiple firings, that develop personalities during the process. Akin to living creatures, they are seemingly dislodged from a Surrealist compression of fairy tales. The identities of these hybrid critters remain elusive and convey an intense emotional vulnerability, heightened by the fragility of ceramic, the transformation inherent in the process and the physicality in making. Dark humour is consistent throughout and psychological space is made manifest. Pace explores the fundamentality of matter through ideas of ‘vital materiality’ and animism.
Tessa Peters is Senior Lecturer in the History and Theory of Art at University of Westminster, an Associate Lecturer at CSM, a researcher, writer and independent curator. Her most recent curatorial project was Cultural Icons for the British Ceramics Biennial at the Potteries Museum, Stoke-on-Trent, and Hove Museum & Art Gallery in 2019-2020. Since 2020 she has facilitated a series of inclusive cross-cultural dialogues, assisting an understanding of issues faced by ceramics practices in different global regions.
This is an ‘in person’ event at Makerversity, New Wing, Somerset House, London, WC2R 1LA
On the day of the event guests will be met at the New Wing reception of Somerset House. This is accessed via Lancaster Place, on Waterloo Bridge. Please arrive no later than 5pm.
Tickets can be booked via Eventbrite here
Places are limited so please book early.