Artist Statement

There is something very satisfying and yet quite strange about being a maker of handmade objects in today’s world. It is easy for technology to produce exquisite cups, bowls and plates at a rate ten thousand fold faster than I can. But, as I put in countless hours of work for slim earnings, there is nothing that will replace the intimacy I experience with each object. From a slosh of mud, my hands manipulate every molecule of clay turning it into volume and shape; texture, colour, strength and utility. And hopefully beauty. I know every piece’s flaws and weak spot. And I also come to see its strengths. This dialogue enlivens my days alone in the studio, keeping me company. The pieces offer criticism and opinions – they will argue with me, enabling me to perceive things I hadn’t before. Making objects “from scratch” is empowering. I know that unfulfilled with a particular piece, I constantly have the power to improve and the tools to eventually create anything that I desire. This desire to create forms unmade, to produce objects that will live and witness a person’s life, a family’s meals, or a living room’s history is the reason why I make objects. It is a privilege and a freedom in an age where so much is given to us in a mold.

Of French and Chinese heritage and born in London, my work often sits on the edge of the wabisabi aesthetic of Japan and the canon of proportions of the west. That dialogue is constant in my life and work – always swaying between two, belonging to neither. This distaste for being pinned down into one category means that I am naturally drawn to abstraction which is open ended and subject to each individual’s lense.