INCLA.Y 2024
28th March - 3rd April 2024
Introducing INCLA.Y 2024
INCLA.Y is a group of five ceramicists brought together in 2023. The concept was born over a cuppa about amazing clay and how - from a ceramicist’s perspective - the medium deserves its own show!
The ceramics-only group has a shared interest in ceramic applied arts and the collaborative body celebrates the diverse nature of the medium as art form whilst also creating a forum for diverse practice.
Our work ranges from figurative sculpture through to medium and small scale vessels, from monotone to colourful, from controlled to free, from thought provoking to challenging.
Having first exhibited at Sixteen Gallery in 2023, we return for our first birthday and welcome Ben Fosker as visiting ceramicist.
We hope that, by juxtaposing our varying styles and approaches, you will enjoy a vibrant and interesting show. Please come along and visit us, we’d love to see you!
Who We Are
Molly Abbott
After graduating from Stoke on Trent, Molly obtained her teaching qualification and taught Art and Ceramics for 13 years. She then taught English in Indonesia, Italy and Ireland over the next ten years, before returning to the UK and settling in Cheltenham, still teaching.
She has had her own workshop since then and found or made time to return to her love of making with clay. She regained her skills making domestic ware and gradually developed her practice into a more sculptural approach - harking back to her college days.
Her references have always been the natural world, and that continues, though she occasionally uses architecture as a starting point.
She is also interested in shape - distorting or bending forms to achieve something less familiar. Any decoration must truly feel part of the piece and not an add on.
Molly uses white clays, which provide the ground for the addition of colour, pattern and texture.
On the surfaces of her pieces she applies coloured slips and oxides, together with man-made colourants, to work with the textures.
Together these interact with the transparent glaze, which is applied for the second firing giving a high glossy and inviting finish.
Peter Garrard
Peter has always worked with 2D and 3D media and over the years his style and interests have evolved but inspired by his Lockdown experience he started to look inwards and made his work more personal and meaningful to him by focusing on the male form and his sexual identity.
For this exhibition he has used the intense colour and mark-making techniques that are possible in ceramics and watercolours to create visual stories, portraits and figure studies of gay men.
Jo Millar
Based in Cheltenham, Jo makes hand-built sculptural and functional ceramics.
She graduated from Bath Spa University in1995 and gained her PGCE from Oxford University in 1996, going on to establish a highly successful career in teaching across the southwest of England, whilst never relinquishing her artistic practice.
In the work chosen for this show you will see a continued interest in natural form, but also you will find echos of her time in India, the indelible experience clearly visible.
Jo mainly uses stoneware clays and porcelain, favouring the coiling method to handbuild her work, a process which enables her to intuitively channel creativity into statement pieces for interior and exterior spaces.
Some sculptures are finished with 24 carat gold or platinum.
Sam Lucas
Sam Lucas is an artist who works predominantly in clay, after receiving a distinction for her MA in ceramics in 2018 she was selected for Rising Stars and New Designers at The Business design centre in London, RAW at Mint Gallery as part London Design Festival.
But her highlights were being selected for AWARD the headlining exhibition at British Ceramics Biennial 2019 and this work was exhibited with Taste Contemporary Gallery at Art Geneve 2020 and later in the year the Crafts Council Hothouse programme.
In 2021 she began undertaking a part time practice-based PhD at Sunderland University. She does not make pretty things.
The work shown here is work in progress, exploring the idea of being in the body and social awkwardness, she describes them as, ‘more about being than being seen’ exploring the human condition.
If you would like to be a part of Sam's research,
follow @theweightofbeing and follow the instructions #mybodyinmyhands #exploringtheneurodiversebody on Instagram
David Wright
David is a studio potter with connections to North East Lincolnshire, he was born and brought up in Cleethorpes and studied at Grimsby School of Art in the mid-1980s.
He gained a first class honours degree in 3-D Design (Ceramics) from Wolverhampton Polytechnic before postgraduate study for aMaster’s Degree in Ceramics and Glass at the Royal College of Art during which time he completed a placement at Wedgwood.
A 27-year career insecondary education followed, teaching design & technology, serving as a faculty head for 22 years. In 2021 he took early retirement from teaching, this allowed him to revisit his earlier interests in ceramics.
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David’s ceramics are in a number of galleries around the country as well as in private collectionshere and abroad, including, America, Ireland, France, Japan, Holland and New Zealand. His current work is mostly in earthenware but he also uses stoneware and raku techniques.
Hand building processes such as press moulding, extruding and slabbing are employed to make components that are then assembled into pieces that explore the possibilities of the lidded vessel and bottle forms.
Surfaces are often textured to enhance interaction between clay and glaze.
Ben Fosker
I am an artist and I work with clay.
What is an artist? An artist is a communicator. I see myself as a poet, imbuing some spirit into a bit of mud.
I grew up in a small village on the River Colne in Essex.
When I was a small boy my surroundings seemed to be an enchanted land and all I wanted was to be a painter. nAlthough I was accepted into art school my mother wouldn’t allow me to go.
I went to sea for several years and then did various things until I became a Buddhist monk.
Whilst a monk, I became fascinated that humans seem to feel a profound need to create meaning in their lives.
That fascination has stayed with me but I don’t know if there is any ultimate meaning.
Eventually, at the age of 42 I went to college.
Initially I studied textiles and ceramics at Carlisle and went on to gain a Foundation Degree in Ceramic Practice from Newcastle College.
I then joined the MA Ceramics Program at Cardiff but found it to be a disillusioning process, pseudo academic, it stifled my creativity so I left.
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My approach to art and life is quite irreverent and anti- authoritarian, I think that nonchalant quality probably comes across in my work. People often say that it makes them smile.