To bind body and clay feels intuitive; each conjure promethean themes of softness, curved lines and creation stories. Amongst the fleshy textures of leather-hard clays, or a shapely Amphora vessel, there’s a craving to consider ceramic practices as informed by traces of the living body. Indeed, references to the human form have long been used within the language of ceramics – ritualistic ancient pots with sensuous curves, their features bearing anatomical namesakes.

The body appears through clay as both an expressive and abstracted entity, as a material rendering of the maker’s own presence. The figure of the vessel lingers and informs ceramicists who push these enduring themes from functional and domestic, to figurative and conceptual. Earthly Bodies is the third major ceramic exhibition at Sarah Myerscough Gallery. Developing from its forebears, Random Growth (2015-2016) and Tectonics (2019) which explored geological themes in contemporary ceramics, this upcoming show considers corporeal and topographical sensibilities.

Featured Ceramcists include: Ken Eastman, Luke Fuller, Yoshimi Futamura, Tomonari Hashimoto, Jonathan Keep, Anne Marie Laureys, Janet Lines, Nuala O’Donovan, Jiwon Park, Aneta Regel, Mella Shaw + Julian Stair