Jennifer Lee: the potter’s space

This exhibition included 40 works made from different periods throughout Lee’s entire career as well as new pots which were made especially for the exhibition at Kettle’s Yard.

Jennifer Lee is a major presence to have emerged from studio ceramics of the 1970s, whose practitioners dismantled notions of clay as a medium confined to functional forms and domestic environments.

Lee’s hand-built unglazed stoneware pots are characterised by their smooth surfaces and rich colours. Beginning with a pinch pot base, which is built upon by coiling lengths of clay, the roots of her process lie in the earliest forms of clay making.

Described by Edmund de Waal as ‘the embodiment of place, complex and intriguing,’ Lee’s pots focus on the interaction between materials and elements, powerfully evoking experiences of time, place and process in a way that feels at once ancient and contemporary.

The exhibition was designed by Jamie Fobert Architects and curated by Sarah Griffin. A new publication designed by Jake Tilson, including an essay by Tanya Harrod, is available from our shop and online.