About

photo Eddie Ephraums

I am from Hamburg in Germany and have lived in Britain most of my life. My mother was a painter, and I was surrounded by art from an early age, but initially I chose an academic career. After working as an art historian and writer for many years, I changed direction and started working with clay. Gradually my focus has shifted from mak­ing wheel-thrown functional ware and groups of bottles and vases in porcelain to working more experimentally. The City Lit Ceramic Diploma course was followed by an MA in Ceramics & Glass from the Royal College of Art in London.

Art is a liberative language,
connecting the fragments within us,
connecting us to others like and unlike ourselves.


Adrienne Rich

My practice centres around archaeological fragments as a way of relating to the past, and architectural models as visions of the future. I create hybrid objects that are clearly fragments but also have the character and function of models.


A sense of mobility – of memories, desires, fears and hopes – is im­portant to understanding my work. With the fragment there is often a cataclysmic event that results in the scattering of fragments which become mobile in the way the original structure might not have been, whereas the model embodies the mobility of ideas that have yet to settle in a particular place. Working with clay allows me to combine simple geometric forms and clearly differentiated surfaces, smooth or highly textured with the imprints of natural materials and found objects. The surfaces are further defined and accentuated with contrasting glazes. Questions about how we inhabit, remember and experience architectural spaces, about shelter and home, and about the uncanny and unhomely, have become central to my work.