GROUND WORKS

County Hall Gallery, Belvedere Road, London, SE1 7PB

12 May - 29 June 2025

Group show curated by Elena Gileva.

GROUND WORKS examines the transformative journey of glazes and materials. The exhibition presents geological specimens, material experiments, and ceramic works that reveal the complex relationship between earth, chemistry, and form.

Emerging from GLOST glaze's ongoing series of material research interviews - Julia Ellen Lancaster/Glost Glaze Interview

GROUND WORKS examines the fundamental relationship between raw materials and ceramic creation, offering visitors insight into the processes that shape contemporary sustainable practices. The exhibition presents the journey from mineral to form, highlighting the crucial dialogue between scientific understanding and artistic expression.

Lancaster’s work often engages with imagined landscapes and speculative futures, exploring possible outcomes of our failure to respond to ecological collapse. Her practice is grounded in material research, investigating the histories, behaviors, and potentials of clay. By treating materials not just as media but as active collaborators, Lancaster uncovers how they can convey environmental narratives and socio-ecological critique.

Some works reference fossilized remains of extinct species, suggesting a future where what's familiar to us now exists only as memory. Others take inspiration from regenerative forms - mimicking trees, coral reefs, fungal networks, or bio-adaptive architecture, to propose a world where nature and human structures coexist harmoniously.

Through these visual narratives, her work synthesizes artistic inquiry, environmental consciousness, and a degree of scientific reflection, employing process-driven experimentation and conceptual enquiry to provoke contemplation regarding injustices and environmental issues. Her practice critically examines the dynamic relationship between humanity and the natural world, emphasizing ceramics' unique capacity to bridge past and present.

In the Coral Trees series, an ongoing body of work, Lancaster uses unwanted, leftover, and reclaimed clay and recycled glazes. Here, material research becomes central, as she allows the intrinsic qualities of the clay to emerge with minimal intervention, letting the clay respond naturally to the force of her hand.