Stephanie is a ceramic artist producing hand built sculptural vessels.

She completed a degree in Ceramics and Glass at Leicester Polytechnic in 1982. After some years of making and exhibiting unique sculptural ceramics and teaching in London, she relocated to France with her young family.

In 2018 Stephanie began a MA in Ceramics at Bath Spa University completing in 2021(Distinction). She set up her current practice hand-building sculptural vessels in porcelain, stoneware and native clay.

Her recent body of work has evolved from works made during her MA and an ongoing photographic study of the surrounding landscapes. These photographic investigations influence the surfaces, structures and markings found within her ceramic work.

"My present work reflects on home and place, focusing on the landscapes and environment where I live in South West France. My immediate surroundings are rural, both wild and tamed, living within farmland fields and woodland.

Since moving here I have used photography to study and document the undulating formation of the land and the traces made by human intervention. Focusing deep into the landscape, I search for line, form and detail created by the integration of human work and natural landforms. These studies, in turn, inform my mark-making in clay and on paper.

I work with a variety of materials and techniques connecting my practice directly with the environment. Local clay is sourced from our pond, once an ancient clay pit where the house bricks were made on site. This clay is used both for hand-building vessels and inlaid mark making.

My working process involves a great deal of clay preparation either the mixing of new batches or the recycling of discarded clay. This part of the process is contemplative and laborious before any making can begin. I slab-build sculptural pieces, a technique which requires some patience and a different pace than coiling the bowl forms.

Porcelain seems to have its own temperament compared to other clays and can be quite challenging, but it has such a unique, fine quality and strength. I enjoy the change over between one clay and another and the resulting differences in texture, colour and feel after firing. Each piece is inlaid with clays, slips and oxides. These markings are intuitively carved into the surface of the piece, then filled and scraped to reveal lines, forms and traces inspired by the landscapes around me. "