Gillian Lowndes

Gillian Lowndes is an English ceramic sculptor who currently lives and works in Essex, England. She was born in Cheshire, England in 1936 and spent much of her childhood in India. She studied at the Central School of Arts and Crafts beginning in 1957 and spent a year at L’École des Beaux-Arts in Paris in 1960. In the early 1970s she traveled to Nigeria with her husband, Ian Auld, a trip that would prove to be influential in her subsequent work. From 1975 until the early 1990s, she taught part-time at Camberwell College of Arts and Central Saint Martins College of Art and Design.

Work and Influences

Since the early 1960s and 70s her work has challenged the traditional notions surrounding the form of a vessel and fine art. Through her non-traditional experimental methods of incorporating found objects and materials such as wire and various objects from found in everyday life into her ceramic work, she continually challenges the orthodox world of pure ceramics. [ [http://collection.britishcouncil.org/html/artist/artist.aspx?id=19114 British Council ] ] Her mixed-media sculptures have been referred to as bricolage, or sculptures that utilize found objects to construct new meaning. “Bricolage sculpture converts the inertia and exhaustion of found materials into new conduits of meaning…the idea of a Bricolage image…depends on the use of the found object wrenched from its original context, used as visual or tactile element but stripped of all but residual meaning.” [ [http://george.weinbergconsulting.ca/george.html Ideas Made Object ] ] Often in Lowndes’ work you’ll find bent can openers, forks, and bull clips, objects that are often overlooked, but are nonetheless part of everyday existence. These objects occupy a space in everyday life that is familiar yet foreign because they slip passed ordinary levels of consciousness. Lowndes’ work arguably raises the attention of the viewer and their complex relationship to the notion of everyday surroundings and the objects that inhabit that “everyday.”

This notion of “the everyday” incorporates aspects of life that are familiar and whose significance is complicated and obscured by their ubiquitous presence in our daily lives. “The everyday” encompasses a complex set of relationships to our surroundings, the places we reside in, the objects that inhabit these spaces, and our own habits within those spaces. This concept of the everyday is imbedded in post-world War II France. There was a dramatic shift in daily life from the scarcity of everyday comforts, like soap and socks, to an astounding abundance of everyday goods. In a very brief time, the French, as with other cultures in post-war Europe, were faced with the alteration and acceleration of their pre-existing modes of life, what Kristin Ross in her book Fast Cars, Clean Bodies: Decolonization and the Reordering of French Culture, calls a “quasi-ubiquitous narrative of wartime deprivation.” [ Ross, Kristin, Fast Cars, Clean Bodies: Decolonization and the Reordering of French Culture (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1996), 72 ] Paris, in particular, ravaged by wartime bombing, faced a time of dramatic urban regeneration and renewal. [ Leak, Andrew, Paris: Created and Destroyed. (AA File no. 45-46, 2001), 28 ] An estranged set of habits revolving around the acquisition of new, modern objects developed as a natural progression in the midst of development and modernization. “France,” states Ross, “appears as a natural organism, a ravenous animal.” [ Ross, Kristin, Fast Cars, Clean Bodies: Decolonization and the Reordering of French Culture (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1996), 72 ] Amongst the drive towards modernization, there was a covert poetic and theoretical resistance against the rush to push-out-the-old-and-bring-in-the-new found in the concern for maintaining and heightening the awareness of the “everyday.” [ Henri Lefebvre and Michel de Certeau were also concerned with maintaining the importance of the everyday: See The Practice of Everyday Life by De Certeau and the Critique de la Vie Quotidienne I and II by Lefebvre.] Ross posits that the rise in the concern with the everyday stemmed from this particularly rapid pace of modernization in France. [ Ross, Kristin, Fast Cars, Clean Bodies: Decolonization and the Reordering of French Culture (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1996), 13 ] This political and social climate played a key role in the emergence of the everyday among these thinkers, such as Henri Lefebvre, Michel de Certeau and Georges Perec and the subsequent theory surrounding the everyday. [ In post-WWII France, the notion of the everyday specifically surrounded women and domesticity as the primary subjects of “everydayness.” As the keeper of the household, they were “manager and administrator.” Women were seen as the ones responsible for rampant consumption. The realm of the domestic and interior space became a controlling factor in the political economy. See reference to Ross’ text. ] As a result, there seemed to be a proliferation of French writers and theorists, who emerged in France throughout the 1950s and 1960s with the concern of the everyday that carried into the next two decades. [ Sheringham, Michael. Everyday Life: Theories and Practices from Surrealism to the Present. (Oxford; New York: Oxford University Press, 2006), 6 ]

The way in which Lowndes imbeds objects in clay calls to mind the concern for the everyday and creates a new kind of preciousness and awareness of the everyday. “Lowndes is keenly aware of the periodically changing objects that have furnished [her house] over time, and admits to a particular fondness for the usually taken for granted things that surround us in contemporary life: bulldog clips, can openers, forks, and pliers.” [ Fielding, Amanda, Bristling with Life, Ceramic Review no 181 (January/February 2000) 21 ] The aesthetic of her work is an odd, sometimes disturbing kind of archeology that incorporates the culture of today, one that both references the remote past and the “here and now.” Her alternation and manifestation of an unusual beauty is found in the absence of the customary precepts that traditional beauty prescribes. Her work is decayed and tortured from firing, an aesthetic she strives for in her work. “I want the works to look like they’ve been in a fire, transformed and distorted by heat. I want to give domestic objects a totally different identity, make the familiar unfamiliar…forks can look like hands.” [ Harrod, Tanya, Trandscending Clay, Crafts (London, England) no. 84 (January/February 1987) 20 ] Her studio is a place of experimentation where mystery and discovery are always present and where she approaches ceramics in the “broadest possible way.” [ Fielding, Amanda, Bristling with Life, Ceramic Review no 181 (January/February 2000) 21]

Lowndes’ affinity and approach to basic, used materials and their inherent materiality calls to mind Arte Povera and Process Art. “The found materials [Lowndes employs] are poor, low-status ones- old bricks, clinker, granite clippings, mild steel strip, cheap industrially made cups and tiles.” [ Harrod, Tanya, Trandscending Clay Crafts (London, England) no. 84 (January/February 1987) 20 ] Arte Povera artists explore the relationship between art and life through the use of such everyday materials in contrast to “quasi-precious” ones like oil paint or marble that are traditionally used in “fine art.” These materials also imply issues pertaining to class and the differentiation between “high” and “low” art. However, Arte Povera “denotes not an impoverished art, but an art made without restraints, a laboratory situation in which a theoretical basis was rejected in favor of a complete openness towards materials and processes.” [ [http://www.tate.org.uk/modern/exhibitions/artepovera/default.htm Tate Modern | Past Exhibitions | Zero to Infinity: Atre Povera 1962-1972 ] ]

Her approach and experimentation with form and materials is much like that of the Process Artists of the 1960s as well. Lowndes believes that “materials are the source of the ideas as well as their expression.” [ Uncertain Echoes [work of Gillian Lowndes] . Ceramic Review no. 103 (January/February 1987) p. 11 ] She has said of her own work that “...it is the methods and materials that produce the ideas, not the other way round. The choice of materials and the assemblage of pieces lead her towards the object and this process gives her work a strangeness that is visually rich, yet her work is still rooted with the ceramic process and material.” [ [http://collection.britishcouncil.org/html/artist/artist.aspx?id=19114 British Council ] ] There is a level of intuition and imagination throughout her process that brings an element of mystery to her work.

Lowndes uses many different combinations and amalgamations of clay from fiberglass dipped in liquid porcelain slip to Egyptian paste in her work. Egyptian paste, also known as Faience, is a self-glazing, low fire clay that was used by ancient Egyptians as much as 7,000 years ago. The clay body contains high levels of soluble sodium that acts as a flux to form a glaze on the surface of the clay during the firing. Lowndes will often bury her work made of Egyptian paste in sand during the firing using a saggar. After the initial firing she will often smash the pieces with a hammer and reassemble them with ceramic mortar or Nichrome wire. [ Pim, H., Uncertain Echoes [work of Gillian Lowndes] . Ceramic Review no. 103 (January/February 1987) p. 11 ] Cups and tiles are added with extra glaze and act as “an affectionate backward glance at the pottery traditions (that of the Leach tradition) of form and technique from which Lowndes emerged.” [ Pim, H. Uncertain Echoes [work of Gillian Lowndes] . Ceramic Review no. 103 (January/February 1987) p. 11 ] Through the firing process, her work goes through odd, curious metamorphosis. When the work is finished, the fusion of the disparate parts rarely resembles the original piece with which she began.

This open-ended approach to making stems from her two-year trip to Nigeria. Previously, Lowndes had already possessed an affinity towards ethnographic objects. Ethnography is an anthropologic description of individual cultures and “human social phenomena.” [ [http://www.reference.com/search?q=ethnography ethnography - Information from Reference.com ] ] Her trip to Nigeria codified her curiosity in the ethnographic aspects surrounding certain objects. However, she wasn’t particularly drawn to the Nigerian pots, but to the non-ceramic materials they used. The seeming haphazard nature with which the materials were juxtaposed was broad and diverse. Nigeria’s influence is seen through Lowndes’ own use of diverse materials. The speed in which they worked was influential as well. “African expediency and improvisation appealed to her… [as well as] the poetic content of the artifacts.” [ Harrod, Tanya, Transcending Clay, Crafts (London, England) no. 84 (January/February 1987) 16 ] Specifically, the Yoruba, who live in South-Western Nigeria near Ife University where Lowndes’ husband worked during their time there, are known for their new styles and approaches to art.

Yoruba artwork, which takes numerous forms, is deeply imbedded in a philosophical discourse pertaining to “deep talk.” This conversation includes resemblance, balance, clarity, completeness, insight, aliveness, and durability. “Yoruba art might be defined summarily as ‘evocative form’ that is meant to be generative and transformative…at the core of Yoruba aesthetics is the saying ‘character (or essence) is beauty’. This refers to the essential nature of a thing or person. When art captures the essential nature of something, the work will be deemed ‘beautiful’.” [ [http://www.groveart.com/shared/views/article.html?section=art.092939.1.2#art.092939.1.2 Grove Art Online ] ] Through her use of objects that possess a patina of use and the everyday, one could say that Lowndes’ work holds the character that is beauty.

Upon her return from Africa, Lowndes’ “impatience with clay” and the so-called “craftsmanly side of her art” is apparent through her combination of “mainstream” sculpture materials “…that put the concept before the material.” [ Harrod, Tanya, Transcending Clay, Crafts (London, England) no. 84 (January/February 1987) 16 ] As a result of Lowndes’ open approach to working, leaving room for reworking and rediscovery, her work vacillates between and perhaps challenges the “undefined space between craft and fine art.” [ [http://collection.britishcouncil.org/html/artist/artist.aspx?id=19114 British Council ] ] Her materially based experimentation and intuitive approach to making with a material that is traditionally seen as a purveyor of craft defines Lowndes' work as art that “…occupies an undefined space between the craft and fine art worlds.” In the introduction to the first exhibition of the Penwith society of Arts in Cornwall, Bernard Leach, who pioneered the revival of the English studio pottery movement in the 1920s, stated “where the artist is a craftsman and the craftsman an artist," then "no artificial barrier exists between the two" [ Palmer, D. Tradition and Originality: Bernard Leach and the New Ceramics. Ceramics (Sydney, Australia) no. 60 (2005) p. 102 ] Though Leach saw art in the craft tradition without any hierarchical differentiation separating the two, the demarcation between fine art and craft has been a point of contention in the ceramics world. The Leach tradition dictates that “the mimetic content in the traditional utilitarian pot is disciplined and constrained by its function.” [ Palmer, D. Tradition and Originality: Bernard Leach and the New Ceramics. Ceramics (Sydney, Australia) no. 60 (2005) p. 102 ] This is where Lowndes separates from the Leach tradition.

Though they shared similar beliefs about the needless boundaries made between craft and fine art, Leach and Lowndes approach to clay as a material differ greatly. Where Leach’s studio practice was conservative and disciplined in regards to clay, Lowndes sacrificed this discipline in favor of intuitions and impulses in order to push the possibilities of the material, incite instinct, and approach making as a process of discovery. [ [http://www.vam.ac.uk/collections/ceramics/points_of_view/transcripts/bslo/ Neil Brownsword on Gillian Lowndes - Victoria and Albert Museum ] ] To Lowndes, Leach, among others, were conservative figures because of his dedication to “majestic vessel forms” and traditional methods. [ Harrod, Tanya, Transcending Clay, Crafts (London, England) no. 84 (January/February 1987) 16 ] In frustration of the particularly sharp divisions found between fine art and craft in England, she rejected the conservative ideals represented by the Leach tradition. Like that of the “New Ceramics,” Lowndes broke “away from the concrete historical tradition of the pot as an object of practical individual and communal use, claiming instead the status of 'fine art', relegating the contemporaneous utilitarian pot to a secondary status of craft, in the process reasserting the hierarchical division which modernism, and the potters, sculptors and painters of thePenwith Society, had endeavored to dissolve. [ Palmer, D. Tradition and Originality: Bernard Leach and the New Ceramics. Ceramics (Sydney, Australia) no. 60 (2005) p. 102 ]

Additional Information

Her work is represented in many collections in Britain and she has had major shows at the Crafts Council (1987) and Contemporary Applied Arts (1994) and major exhibitions such as The Raw and the Cooked (1993-1994).

Works Cited

* S. Harley, 'Ian Auld and Gillian Lowndes' Ceramic Review v 44 (March/April 1977) 4-5
* Elisabeth Cameron 'Gillian Lowndes' (Ceramic Review v 83, September/October 1983) 11
* Angus Suttie 'The Dangerous Edge of Things' (Crafts v 75 1985) 49-50
* Henry Pim 'Uncertain Echoes' (Ceramic Review v 103 1987) 10-12
* Gillian Lowndes (Ceramics Monthly V. 36 Pt 4, April 1988) 28-29
* Victor Margrit 'Gillian Lowndes' (Studio Pottery 9, June/July 1994) 34-38
* Palmer, D. Tradition and Originality: Bernard Leach and the New Ceramics. (Ceramics (Sydney, Australia) no. 60 2005) 101-3

References

External links

* [http://www.aber.ac.uk/ceramics/gendered/biographies/madolinekeeler.htm University of Wales Aberystwyth Ceramic Collection: Biographies]
* [http://www.vam.ac.uk/collections/ceramics/points_of_view/transcripts/bslo/ Neil Brownsword on Gillian Lowndes]
* [http://www.anthonyshawcollection.org/gl/collection_gl.htm Anthony Shaw Collection]
* [http://collection.britishcouncil.org/html/artist/artist.aspx?id=19114 British Council: Artist Biography]