Meet Emilie Taylor

Up and coming ceramic artist Emilie Taylor was one of the most exciting new additions to the Affordable Art Fair Battersea earlier this spring. Her pots, heavily subject-driven and created using heritage craft processes, received much acclaim after being shown amongst Cynthia Corbett Gallery’s coveted selection of Young Masters.

We caught up with Emilie before the Battersea fair to hear the fascinating stories and inspirations behind her pots …

Tell us a bit about your practice …

I hand build, using coils, large pots that tell stories about people’s lives or offer a comment on society. I use traditional slip and sgraffito techniques (building up and scratching away coloured layers) to draw narratives onto the surfaces of the pots. Gold lustres are then used to highlight moments of humanity, reflection and spirituality within my subjects.

I use images drawn from Modernist housing estates, often developed through my work with local communities (for example young teenage boys, or groups of pigeon fanciers who meet in estate lofts), and depict these on my pots. I create outlines in iron oxide – the rust and the gold sit together with equal importance, in imagery that combines a traditional English aesthetic with elements of Renaissance iconography.

I love how Sara Roberts described my work in the 2013 Ceramics Illustrated catalogue: ‘Rich, lustred surfaces overlay a gritty reality in which track-suited figures are depicted with some of the glories of classical poses and religious icons.’Is the shape and form of the pot itself integral to your work?

I am interested in the vessel or container as a metaphor for how we seek to contain communities within the built landscape of British society.

I am also attracted to the way pottery as a medium seduces people before they realise what the images depict, as Robert Clark wrote about my work, ‘Emilie Taylor craftily infiltrates pottery’s decorative charm with hints of political dissent’ (The Guardian, 2014). The pots enable me to infiltrate drawing rooms up and down the country!

Who or what is the biggest influence on your work?

Me! And the life I have lived until now.

Beyond myself, the biggest influence on my work is the post-industrial landscape, and the impact this has on communities and people’s lives today.

Which artists inspire you?

I am influenced by early English slipware as part of our heritage that has been often overlooked. It has been part of people’s every day lives for hundreds of years, depicting personal events within the community alongside political events of the time.I am also inspired by the Arts & Crafts movement, led by William Morris in Britain in the 1880s, and his belief in the important role of craft in society. This influence is referenced in the pattern I use across the top of my pots.

Potters dealing with contemporary political issues today interest and inspire me. Phil Eglin, Paul Scott and Steve Dixon are all people whose work I really admire.

Highlight of your career so far?

Personally, a pot depicting my Grandma’s council estate being displayed on the Great Stairs of the Duke of Devonshire’s home Chatsworth House! She wouldn’t have believed it.

Professionally, showing this work led to a year-long residency for me between the Chatsworth Estate and the aforementioned council estate (Manor, in Sheffield), and I produced a body of work I was very proud of. This was installed in the Great Chamber at Chatsworth in 2014.

What do you have in store over the coming months?

I have works to deliver to two museum collections, and I am enjoying some studio time developing new large scale pieces for a solo show in 2017 that will tour the UK.

I am undertaking a Craft Fellowship at World of Bede Museum, Jarrow supported by Arts Heritage and I have work on show at Bury Art Museum, Bury.