Votive altars (2021)
After graduating with a First-Class BA in Fine Art I was competitively selected for the Loughborough University Ceramics Fellowship. The yearlong fellowship afforded me a studio and access to workshop facilities in support of my ongoing experimentation; creating ritual forms whilst utilising ceramic folk practices. This opportunity afforded me the perfect environment for my research into the Imaginal and investigation of Alchemical praxis.
My work is in part an expanded exploration of the ontological status of entities and what constitutes definitions of ‘being’. I work to create non-figurative personifications that illude materialist reductions; A candlestick can be at once an object, a tool and an entity unto itself. Through ritual interaction my ceramics become tools to amplify a persons ability to enchant their life with meaning.
Ritual Objects (2021)
I am currently exploring objects as events, that embody ritual. These images record an offering made to the land spirits of Blackhall Rocks, Hartlepool; A post industrial beach transformed by chemicals released from the ruins of the coal industry. This offering precedes a new body of work that takes inspiration from the black charred coal and rust rich remains that stain this landscape, who’s tides lap between the worlds of water and earth.
I am learning so much about ceramics from the flow, flux and fixity of this metamorphic landscape. Whose lunar salt water tides soak the land in brine and whose solar pulse bakes natures fractal rhythms in its wake.
Having left the magical forests of Latvia that raised me and arriving on this island at ten years old, it has taken me a decade to navigate my way into right relation with the landscape. Making ritual ceramics from English earth has been a vital process of introducing myself and my intentions to this place I now call home.
Blue Firth’s ritual ceramics Dohmshop have been a great inspiration to me. Chaos Magic Space’s ritual engagements, opportunities and creative community continue to warm me from a distance.