The work of London-based artist, Lucy Whitford, somehow manages to transcend both time and medium. From the clean, contemporary forms of her sculpted vessels emerge Arcadian emblems, as if, over centuries, the man-made has been reclaimed by nature.
Whitford gained a Master's in Fine Art with Distinction from Chelsea Collage of Art in 2012. At a time when ceramics studios were declining in numbers and very few of her peers were exploring the medium, Whitford embraced the precarity of working with unfired clay. She conceived installations that juxtaposed this ephemeral material with the durability of steel and fluidity of silk.
Whitford exhibited in a major solo show straight out of art school and continued her career as an exhibiting artist with a studio practice in London until motherhood demanded a more solid foundation for her work. Her practice evolved to include fired clay, yet despite offering a newfound permanence, her approach continues to defy the solidity of the medium, with a grace and a movement reminiscent of her Baroque predecessor, the renowned woodcarver Grinling Gibbons.
Growing up amid the Palladian and Edwardian architecture of London, the Acanthus leaf was woven into the visual language of Whitford's childhood. As she became a mother herself, it was to this familiar emblem that she turned her practice. Crafted from a richly textured stoneware clay, her exquisite vessels weave time-honoured emblems into modern forms, and in so doing, express something more profound, juxtaposing the permanence of motherhood with the fluidity of the self.
