Justine Allison • June 3 - 30
Justine Allison primarily works making hand-built porcelain forms which play on the boundaries between function and decoration. She engages with the simplicity and beauty of clay, incorporating pattern and texture to create subtle, unique variations on the surface. The lightness and subtle movement of form contributes to the eloquence in communicating a quiet grace.
Justine began her journey in slab-built ceramics at Camberwell College of Art. Here she was introduced to working with bone china, which assisted her transition to exclusively using porcelain for her hand-built vessels. Leaving Camberwell College of Art in 1988, she and 5 colleagues set up a studio in a railway arch in Peckham. She says, “this is truly where my ceramics career began”.
Having grown up, studied, worked and lived in a busy part of London her work has drawn inspiration from city life. There is an architectural quality to her forms, and her aesthetic speaks of the sounds and sensibility of urban life. She now lives and works in rural Wales, and this new range of stimuli begins to infuse her work - the way the light falls in her studio, a softer, more open but perhaps sparser environment.
“I am fascinated by the transforming effect of light on the physical properties of porcelain. When a simple object is illuminated from within, subtle details become apparent, and an ‘atmosphere’ is created that transcends the object’s mere functionality.”
For Justine, function is a driving motivation but not a destination. She explains, “I look at objects that are used on a daily basis; like the form of a jug and create pieces that move away from function and are more concerned with the aesthetic and the visual.” Taking a functional vessel as a starting point, Justine works thinly rolled porcelain to capture the form through a process she compares to drawing. The marks of construction add to applied lines and colour, contributing to the considered aesthetic of the finished piece. They become a document or testament to their own creation.
Lines from land and urban strata are embedded into the surface Justine’s vessels. Porcelain is a very fine clay body to manipulate. The fragility of the material belies the robustness of its qualities once fired to a high temperature. Vitrified, it is stable and becomes strong and luminescent. Movement in the form is derived through process. The vessels shift as they are built, settle as they dry and alter again as they are fired.
Justine’s work is designed to work individually or clustered as small collections. They create a pleasing family, resonate within a pairing or stand out as individual pieces. As a grouping they create their own compositions and landscapes. Different heights and angles within the groups generate dynamic relationships. They may have familiar traits or pleasing differences that creating additional rhythm and motion. Connections between shape, form and surface invite the viewer to look through and around the groups, with each piece displaying its own unique dialogue and character.
There is a sense of effortless precision to Justine’s forms. The resolved composition has an unassuming presence. They have strong lines and soft colours that play with the nature of light as it rests on them, conveying a gentle movement on these static forms. There is a quietude to Justine’s work that has a commanding gravitas and confidence in its being – not quiet, like a mouse, but quiet like a mountain.