Making with meaning is fundamental to Alison Shelton Brown; being creative to the core, she explores the consequences of the human touch on our world. Drawing on decades of experimenting with materials, her butterfly brain and bowerbird eye inform intuitive hands and help them play with those fluttering thoughts through ceramics, metal and textiles.
Alison loves the malleability of clay; to prod, tear and embed surfaces with the foraged and found, inviting a reciprocal tactile interaction. Porcelain is married with rusty nails or animal bones – purity and the damned – celebrating the beauty of imperfection, in praise of the discarded and overlooked. Inspiration is often derived from ethnographic collections, where amulets are reimagined in metal studded porcelain, filled with intention and spangled with desires.
Alison makes objects that adorn and ornament the body or a place; sculptural ceramics which can be hung, worn and stroked. By distilling an idea and rigorously eliminating the unnecessary, the essence of a form is divined; a simple joy revealed.
