Julia Ellen Lancaster MRSS

The language of clay is a starting point, assembling and manipulating the material, introducing rocks, calcinated materials, detritus and metals and exposing the works to extreme heat. This approach causes the clay to crack and melt in unexpected ways, forming organic matter on the surfaces.

My work is connected to notions of beauty and the liminal space between attraction and repulsion. The sculptures retain a sense of precarity and chance, reflecting a continuous survey of humans’ relationship to the landscape (deeply connected and interchangeable) and a rapidly changing earth. Particular works use a process resulting in what might be considered ‘living sculptures’, whereby they are added to over time, mirroring the ceaseless changes happening in the environment.

These  ceramic sculptures exemplify the geology of their materials, intertwining history and form. The clay, shaped over millennia, carries traces of its origins—riverbeds, cliffs, or industrial sites—informing the work’s structure. This process extends a notion of Surrealist Automatism, transforming it into a tactile, instinctive practice. By collecting, reclaiming and reshaping clay, I am channeling subconscious associations, connecting past, present, and future. The origins of the material which includes the material waste of other makers, serves as inspiration, creating a dialogue between time and place