Gabrielle Felton
is a ceramic artist living and working in St Albans, in the United Kingdom. Her current work is concerned with freestanding sculptural vessels that have a very defined outline and weight. This references her previous work with typography and print design in various countries and industries and continues a lifelong fascination with how we make ourselves understood to others. She was educated in the UK and South Africa and holds two degrees: in Linguistics and Poetics, as well as a City & Guilds qualification in ceramics from West Herts College, Watford. Her work has sold at Potfest and at various craft markets around the UK. She has exhibited at the David Gentleman Gallery in Ware, Hertfordshire. She is a member of Herts Visual Arts Forum and London Potters.
Artist Statement
As someone whose senses of smell and taste decided to absent themselves thirty years ago, I rely on texture and colour to help me describe the world. I find that haptic feedback and mark making are my main means of expression.
I see the world as a collection of shapes and voids, from the microscopic to the macroscopic and I am intrigued by the often unacknowledged presence of art in science and science in art. I am curious about patterns in nature as well as the physical forces at work in rock formations and erosion. On a human level, I am fascinated by the evolution of shapes to represent sounds, that, when combined, shape words that then represent ideas.
Through the medium of ceramics, I make vessels that carve the space around them establishing a solid boundary that both contains and occupies. It is a visual, tactile thesaurus of the world I live in and the meaning I take from it.
It is a privilege to create objects whose source is the earth we live upon. When someone reaches out to touch one of my pieces, I know I have succeeded in sharing that connection directly back through the clay to the earth, and that is deeply satisfying.
If you see something you like, please get in touch.
Gabrielle.