POTTY FOR IT
CERAMICS HAVE REACHED CULT STATUS, AS DESIGNERS BLUR THE LINE BETWEEN ART AND FUNCTION
NEVER WOULD I HAVE IMAGINED THAT A CERAMIC ASH TRAY COULD PROVOKE in me the same frenzied response as a designer handbag. And yet there I was on a Friday night, glued to my screen, counting down the seconds to an Instagram ash sale in an attempt to get my hands on one.
This was no ordinary ashtray: it was a particularly debauched one, lled with lipstick-rimmed cigarette butts, gold teeth and empty drug baggies, painstakingly rendered in clay by ceramicist-of-the-moment Alma Berrow.
Kate Moss, Sadie Frost and Blanca Miró are already fans, and her knack for ‘nding comedy and delight in the disgusting’ has made her so popular that sales have now moved from social media to West End galleries.
Berrow is in the vanguard of young, cool, Instagram-famous ceramicists who are breathing new life into a millennia-old medium with their signature humour, penchant for pushing boundaries and all-important lack of pretension. ‘Once, the aim was to make the “perfect” bowl or mug or vase,’ says Berrow. ‘Now, it’s all about playing around and having fun.’ And this sense of fun is infectious, opening up the art form to a whole new audience.
Covid is partly responsible for the renewed interest in this ancient art. ‘The enforced slowness brought on by the pandemic has contribute dto a newfound appreciation for handmade crafts, and ceramics in particular,’ says Dr Cliff Lauson, curator of the Hayward Gallery’s upcoming show Strange Clay: Ceramics In Contemporary Art (which runs 26 Oct 2022 – 8 Jan ’23). ‘Artists working in clay today are showing an unprecedented freedom, unconstrained by traditional techniques, styles or schools of thought.’
And ceramics are only growing more mainstream. Anissa Kermiche’s cheeky ‘Love Handles’ vase was a cult lockdown buy and is still a bestseller on Net-A-Porter and Matches fashion. Seattle-based Adri en Miller’ s‘ Y in Yang Lovers Bowl’ blew up on Instagram mid-pandemic – as did work by Freya Bramble-Carter,KatyStubbs,HenryHolland,JakeClarkandKarenCheung, whose swear-word porcelain pendants sell out within seconds. Bold, tonguein-cheek and conversation-inducing, these buzzy new ceramics will keep us (and, happily, nowadays our guests) entertained.