This will be her second solo show at our gallery following her first in 2015 entitled “Jennifer Lee, Ceramics made in Shigaraki and London”. In the current exhibition, we present ten new hand-built vessels, one ceramic wall work, sixteen small thrown works and eight pencil drawings.
In her dignified vessels we can appreciate the beauty of Lee’s creations. “My work is concerned with the relationship of materials in the studio. The larger works are hand-built using the most ancient traditional techniques of pinching and coiling. They are made from basic elemental materials – clay, water and oxides.” Quote Jennifer Lee. The small works are wheel thrown. Some of these Lee produced during her guest artist residency at Shigaraki Ceramic Culture Park in 2014, others were made in London. She started throwing again after thirty years while undertaking the residency in Japan. These works fit perfectly in the hand and give a sense of affinity.
Jennifer Lee has developed a method of colouring clay by mixing metal oxides into clay before firing. She does not use glaze. Colour and form are integrated. She purchases oxides and tools when she travels and has discovered that leaving clay to rest for decades in her London studio can alter the appearance of the fired vessel. Lee feels that when clay is fired you can create a lasting image which captures a moment in time.
Her ceramic work combines a timeless quality with a highly refined modernity. The pencil drawings create their own world and stimulate the viewers imagination while retaining the memories of the actual vessel.
Jennifer Lee was born in Aberdeenshire, Scotland, in 1956. From 1975 to 1979 she studied ceramics and tapestry at Edinburgh College of Art. She then spent eight months on a travelling scholarship to the USA where she researched South-West Indian prehistoric ceramics and visited contemporary West Coast potters. From 1980 to 1983 she continued her work in ceramics at the Royal College of Art in London.
Lee has had retrospective exhibitions in museums in Scotland and Sweden. Her work is represented in more than forty museums worldwide including The British Museum, Victoria & Albert Museum, Stockholm National Museum of Art, Los Angeles County Museum and The Metropolitan Museum of Art.
She first visited Japan in 1994, and in 2009 she exhibited at 21_21 Design Sight in the exhibition 'U-TSU-WA'. The installation was designed by Japanese architect Tadao Ando - her pots appeared to float on a vast pool of water.
She has been a guest artist at Shigaraki Ceramic Culture Park in 2014, 2015 and is working there now. Over the years her ties with Japan have deepened through taking part in international workshops, exhibiting in museum group shows as well as in solo exhibitions. Her work is represented in four museum collections in Japan including Mashiko Museum of Ceramic Art and Tochigi Prefectural Museum of Fine Art.
Following her first solo show at Sokyo Gallery in 2015, two important ceramic works were acquired by The Museum of Ceramic Art, Hyogo.
