Introducing Elin Hughes ceramics from Wales
The handmade ceramics of Elin Hughes are a playful explorations of form and deconstruction, part sculpture, part decorative vases for dried arrangements.
Her technique combines Majolica glazing techniques with thrown and altered forms that combine contemporary art and punk craft. More sculpture than functional tableware, their playful forms are rich with surface texture and historical references.
Hughes has a B.A (Hons) in ceramics and is one of the upcoming ceramics stars of the British craft world. She has exhibited throughout the British Isles and internationally.
Based in Wales, Hughes pieces together fragments from a range of eclectic influences, she create mischievous vessels which explore personal and Welsh identity and the role of skill in today’s society. She manipulates clay as a metaphor for the continually shifting natures of these identities.
"Combining elements from Victorian era ‘Gaudy Welsh’, American Abstract Expressionism and British country pottery traditions, I rip, fracture and reconfigure wheel thrown forms. I approach making as unselfconscious improvisation, nurturing that sense of childhood curiosity from when my awareness of individual identity first started to develop. These ‘Grandma Punk’ pots combine kitsch patterns from historical Welsh ceramics with forms that reject pretence and refinement. They embrace irregularity and uncertainty, joy and humour; values I view as central to our identity." EH
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