Supernormal Domestic – Janice Affleck, Catherine Maskell, Sian Patterson, Charlott Rodgers and Ruth Mae Martin

Re-weirding the everyday objects that we live with at home. A collective of artists utilising clay and glass to take a playful look at domesticity.

As a collective of artists utilising clay and glass, we have taken a transgressive, subversive and playful look at domesticity.

The exhibition explores gender based narratives inherent within western ideas of the domestic, via familiar objects and experiments in materiality. We examine and challenge traditionally accepted gendered performance inside the home. The translation of difficult emotions, such as sadness and rage, via a vintage tea set that is pushed to breaking point – too full and too hot with foam glass, and a dinner ware set expressing its feelings via form and surface treatment.

We are also interested in traces that we as humans will leave behind us, both collectively and as individuals. The way that the small items we accumulate – a shell at the beach, the out of date bank card – are rituals of the domestic and ghosts in the home. All of this against the background hum of anxiety about the state of the environment and a William Morris-esque desire to bring nature back into the home. And a playful re-imagining of quotidian plastic bottles as ancient artefacts of the future.

Janice/ Glisk Ceramics is based at Glasgow Ceramics Studio in Hanson Street Wasps Studios. Much of the focus of her work is on developing methods of model and plaster mould making, combining digital 3D modelling, printing and hand-drawing. Current work is divided between commissions for both indoor and outdoor pieces, collaborative and sole projects for shows including the RSA and Scottish Society of Artists annual exhibitions and maintaining an active research-based practice. Producing mainly abstract architectural forms, I play with light, shadow and reflection; using an experimental process paired with traditional materials and techniques. My work translates qualities such as patina, liminality and imperfection to into clay. I am continually developing my methods of model and plaster mould making, combining digital modelling, 3D printing, cutting and hand-drawing, balancing complexity with functionality, new technologies with tradition.

Ruth Mae Martin is a Scottish Ceramicist, currently working and living in Glasgow. I received the Charlotte Fraser Scholarship to attend the Royal College of Art to study for an MA in Ceramics and Glass in 2020. Previously I attended Duncan of Jordanstone College of Art to study Illustration and Printmaking. My background in illustration has had a significant impact on the ceramic work I make now, in that all my work is designed using paper collage techniques and then finally translated into clay. Colour has a large part to play in my work, and defining a colour palette for each collection is something I take a lot of joy in. My practice is specifically focused on the symbiosis between people and their objects. The objects we choose to surround ourselves with are a lens: they act as vessels for our memories, influence our thoughts and inform how we learn about the world. My work explores this by using objects autobiographically: each one visits a specific memory or thought. By arranging these objects, I am portraying myself at various moments in time, collaging the moments that have formed how I experience my environment. I employ a unique visual language to produce objects that exist between function and ornamentality. These are made using slip-casting, press-moulding and slab-building processes. I experiment with glaze to achieve finishes representing materials not usually associated with clay. You can find my work in JGM Gallery in London, Red Door Gallery in Edinburgh and Welcome Home in the CCA in Glasgow.

Catherine Maskell is a largely self taught ceramic artist who came to ceramics via night classes at a local arts centre in 2016, whilst working part time and studying for her clinical psychology masters. She currently lives in Glasgow and works out of Glasgow Ceramics Studio, where she makes both functional and sculptural pieces, via a variety of methods including throwing, hand-building and slip casting. Access to a gas kiln in the studio has allowed her to experiment with wood ash glazes and reduction firing schedules. She appreciates the highly involved nature of firing work in reduction, the use of minimal ingredients and the elements of surprise that come with firing work with a flame. This has led to a new body of work, rooted firmly in nature and nature-anxiety, in dialogue with the earth and its materials, which considers the impact of humans on the planet and the traces of The Anthropocene that might remain in a post-human world. She also quietly interrogates capitalism and usefulness, and the implicit societal expectations of “gendered purpose” that are woven into ideas around ageing. Having honed her skills crafting functional ceramics, she has recently been subverting the idea of function, via a series of flawed containers, made from waste and found ceramic materials, barely held together via layers of clay, rocks and other detritus, and would not actually function to contain anything in the way suggested by their form.

Sian Patterson is a Glasgow-based ceramicist principally making thrown stoneware pieces which are characterised by a quiet precision and gentle abstraction. My work references a wide range of influences – from Victorian pharmaceutical and preserving bottles, to seventeenth century Dutch paintings of domestic interiors, to the still lives of Giorgio Morandi. The connection is an interest in the domestic – in particular the objects, rituals and rhythms that characterise it. By assembling and arranging my work into formal groupings or ‘functional still lives’, I investigate the point at which an object or collection of objects can be both familiar and distinctive. I trained as an architect in Nottingham and London before moving to Glasgow in 2005 to complete my architectural studies at the Glasgow School of Art. This included postgraduate research focusing on the characteristics of the domestic interior, and the representational techniques available to engage with that character. In 2010, I returned to my childhood interest in clay and started taking evening classes in both hand building and wheel throwing. I began practicing ceramics full time as a studio member at Fireworks Studio in Glasgow in 2012 and more recently Glasgow Ceramics Studio, where I have been a full time member since 2016. Over the past 10 years, I have taken part in a wide variety of exhibitions and shows across the UK, as well as invited ceramics exhibitions in London, Faenza and Milan.

Charlott Rodgers‘ approach to materials is dissident and unconventional. As a practice-based studio artist she investigates the creative applications of glass and ceramics. Charlott explores and combines conflicting and incompatible materials with the somewhat volatile nature of foam glass within her artistic studio practice. Trained and skilled in traditional making methods and techniques she actively breaks the rules of restrictive traditional glass and ceramic fabrication techniques. As a material activist, Charlott wants to challenge perceptions of beauty, craft and methods of making, actively drawing on the disciplinary context of Sloppy Craft and Craftivism. Charlott holds an MFA in Glass from Edinburgh College of Art and has exhibited in the UK including the British Glass Biennale 2022.