Jo Pearl MRSS

Jo Pearl is a multi-disciplinary sculptor working in clay, a provocateur using this benign material to elicit emotional reactions. Her practice is also a celebration of the materiality of clay and its diverse states of being. She strives to breathe clay into life, making kinetic sculpture, haptic abstract forms and combining clay stop-motion with fired ceramics. Sculpting, she often keeps the clay malleable, constantly evolving her forms, while capturing each iteration photographically with stop-motion software to weave a narrative into film. After the shoot, she kiln-fires the outcomes, transforming them from clay to ceramic as though in suspended animation. This use of film is an environmental choice, to minimise her kiln-firings, but also allows her to create the illusion of life.  

Her practice is politically engaged and concerned with existential problems facing humanity: the urgent need to value healthy soil, air pollution’s impact on health, modern slavery. 

Collaboration is also key: From working with film editors and composers, to co-curating group shows like On Air (2022) and Soil Dialogues (2024) and co-making with fellow artists (Kim Abeles for Smog Collectors London) and in my public engagement workshops Earthworks where she co-makes clay landscapes to open up conversations about the public realm. 

Exhibitions inlcude: 'Moving Darwin',  her first solo show, mounted at Charles Darwin's Family home in 2021, hosted by English Heritage. Group shows: Somerset House's 2025 landmark 'SOIL: The World at our Feet', 'Soil Dialogues' with EcoartSpace in Florence 2024, 'Unfamiliar Ground' in Berlin in 2023, 'On Air' themed exhibition about air pollution at Ceramic Art London, 2022.