JENNIFER MORRIS
Jennifer Morris is a ceramic artist based close to the Maud & Mabel Gallery in Hampstead, London. A pre-foundation course in 2008 introduced her to working with clay. Morris hand-builds objects that can be easily inserted into daily life and provide both joy and function. Using an understated and limited colour palette, which draws attention to the silhouettes of her creations, Morris experiments with different stoneware and earthenware clays. Her creative process is intuitive; visualising an image in her mind and then creating it in three-dimensional form - ‘I sketch in clay, making new ideas come to life’. For Morris, this allows her to find inspiration during the process, letting her works organically develop, retaining energy and movement in her pieces.
Jennifer Morris’ 2022 collection for Maud & Mabel entitled Resilience responds to the artist’s sustained meditation on the importance of strength and durability to navigate daily life. Exploring her material through this concept of resilience, Morris’ preference for raku firing in which clays have to withstand rapid changes in extreme temperature, alongside reduction firing in which clay has to endure the expansion and contraction of snowflake glazes, are two material processes which put the clay under significant stress. Her preference for these processes, which produce intricate surface crackling and strong textural depth, lies in Morris’ relishing of chance-based interactions that are so intrinsic to the ceramic practice - ‘You can never make the same exact piece twice and therein lies the magic.’ A number of raku fired vessels in this collection display intentionally torn and jagged rims, to further reflect the artist’s statement of material resilience.
Jennifer Morris’ 2022 collection for Maud & Mabel entitled Resilience responds to the artist’s sustained meditation on the importance of strength and durability to navigate daily life. Exploring her material through this concept of resilience, Morris’ preference for raku firing in which clays have to withstand rapid changes in extreme temperature, alongside reduction firing in which clay has to endure the expansion and contraction of snowflake glazes, are two material processes which put the clay under significant stress. Her preference for these processes, which produce intricate surface crackling and strong textural depth, lies in Morris’ relishing of chance-based interactions that are so intrinsic to the ceramic practice - ‘You can never make the same exact piece twice and therein lies the magic.’ A number of raku fired vessels in this collection display intentionally torn and jagged rims, to further reflect the artist’s statement of material resilience.
