Featured Maker: Alison Shelton Brown
Featured Maker: Alison Shelton Brown
2 March - 30 April 2022
Making with meaning is fundamental to Alison, exploring the consequences of the human touch on our world. Drawing on decades of experimenting with materials, her butterfly brain and bowerbird eye inform intuitive hands and help them play with those fluttering thoughts through ceramics, metal and textiles.
A truism of American artist Jenny Holzer resonates with her; ‘All things are delicately interconnected’. There is a circularity in life and in how Alison works; themes long forgotten suddenly re-emerging from a chrysalis, while the threads of tangible mark making, assemblage of multiples and our impact on the natural world continually weave, embed and cast shadows.
She loves the malleability of clay; to prod, tear and embed surfaces with the foraged and found, inviting a reciprocal tactile interaction. Porcelain has a reputation for being fragile, yet its fineness is its strength. Appearances can be deceptive. The luxurious properties enable thin lightweight components with an underlying process of playfulness and a light touch. Inspiration is often derived from ethnographic collections; amulets and scrimshaw, bamboo fish traps and the Japanese tea ceremony. Walking the beach is rewarded with detritus and brought back to her garden studio in East Devon where she lives with her husband in an Old Chapel which is slowly being renovated.
Alison makes objects that adorn and ornament the body or a place; sculptural ceramics which can be hung, worn and stroked. By distilling an idea and rigorously eliminating the unnecessary, the essence of a form is divined; a simple joy revealed.
@alisonsheltonbrown
