Collaborative and Collective Works

My Body in My Hands: Curated by Sam Lucas and Nick Grellier.

Poena 2: Hair with Stitch, 2023 made for My Body in My Hands curated by Sam Lucas https://www.sam-lucas.com/and Nick Grellier https://www.nickgrellier.com

‘The basis of the project was driven by Sam Lucas’ practice-based PhD research in ceramics and wellbeing, exploring how creativity can act as a coping strategy, through a phenomenological lens. The research has already expanded from creativity in the singular material of clay, into whichever material or form the respondent chooses.

From what started as a eureka moment whilst holding an object in my hand, warm from the kiln, and wondering if others would join me in a kind of democratic, social media exhibition. Has become a sharing of highly personal experiences of ‘being in the body’ and has highlighted over 500 different ways of exploring how it feels. The only remit was that it should be revealed in the hand of the creator. The responses are documented in visual, tacit, sensorial, ethereal tangible forms, imbued with powerful emotion.

The exhibition was the culmination of those who agreed to participate further than step one, which was the social media call out. Step two was to include the image in the physical exhibition, and step three is the physical object in this SVA Gallery exhibition.’

My Body in my Hands exhibition publication 2024

Shown at the John Street Gallery, supported by Stroud Valley Arts in May 2023

Poena 1: Clay with egg shell 2023 (top)

Remove what is unwanted.

17x15x12cm

Poena 2: Migraine - Hair with stitch 2023 (bottom)

When pain erupts in the head.

Its the final settling place is right behind the eye.

Pulsating for hours, sometimes days.

Hyper sensitivity to light sets in and the descent into darkness begins.

Porcelain and bone china 2023 - 7x4x2cm

Red clay with London clay 2023 - 5x3x1cm

Living with endometriosis, pain and the related migraines.

These piece are made to scale and directly relate to two surgical procedures involving the removal of fibroids, chocolate cysts and endometriosis. Between 2018 and 2022.

Red clay with London clay 2023 - 3x1x0.4cm