Emily Hall

My clay journey began in high school but i've always had an instinctive need to create throughout my life. A curiosity for my local history ebbs into much of my work having grown up in South Staffordshire in a village built over retired coal mines. 

I like the permanence of ceramics, even though there is the burden of knowing what i make will outlive me, i take advantage of this quality to preserve things that are being lost or changed: where there was once a field of beautiful but unstable land in my village there is now a housing estate newly built on top of it. Clay helps me process these changes. 

I'm obsessed with achieving an idiosyncratic approach to my contextual themes, looking for perspectives I didn't notice before; usually the perspective of an insect on a human theme - like an insect alter ego. This tendency to highlight the overlooked is complimented by my maximalist stylisation that seeks your attention. I love designing patterns and involving textures and processes in my pieces that continue the traditions of Staffordshire ceramicists such as extruding through mesh and pressing textured slabs into moulds. 

In my quest to escape the expectations of static ceramic forms I enjoy being inquisitive about clays’ bounds and limits through designing kinetic functions like locking mechanisms, hinges and rotational elements.

There are levels of reaction that I crave from my audience: I want you to be in awe of the detail, I want you to be taken aback by its unusualness and i want you to understand but its ok if you do not.