Lorraine Robson makes beautiful, contemplative, hand-built ceramics paying homage to ancient skills while embracing contemporary influences.

She creates intuitively, a fusion of ideas, drawing on a kaleidoscope of images and observations to make work with unique identity balanced between manufactured, machine made and organic references.

Her sculptural ceramics, frequently dictated by classic vessel forms, are not designed as functional. Straddling the worlds of fine art and craft her work defies categorisation. Coiling is her method of construction, slab and pinching for complex forms. More recent work focuses on multiples to create installation – an exciting new development and welcomed return to sculptural concerns, using slip casting techniques from specially created hand crafted plaster moulds.

Each vessel is fired a minimum three times, the surface sanded and polished using diamond abrasives, then, silicon carbide between each firing to reveal the beauty of naked clay.

With ideas, sculptural qualities in Lorraine’s ceramics are of utmost importance. Focus is on form rather than surface colour or pattern to capture imagination. Glaze is used sparingly to highlight detail, deepen interior shadow or to emphasise subtleties of shape and form.

“In a world where pressure is on instant results, dominated by commercialism and technology, I enjoy the meditative nature of allowing the form to evolve with handwork, imagination, and human labour using the most primitive and natural materials available – the earth itself”.