Madeleine Thornton-Smith

Madeleine Thornton-Smith attempts to dissolve the literal and metaphorical boundaries of different mediums through the process of collaging materials. Originally trained as a painter she approaches ceramics in a different way to traditional potters, using ceramics as another ‘canvas’ on which to paint. Working with clay gives her practice three-dimensionality and opens up a dialogue between various art forms. The hand-built element of her ceramic vessels relates to both to sculpture in its haptic nature and to traditional pottery its form. ‘Useless’ handles, lumpy form and unglazed pots suggest a tension between the functional and the non-functional, the utilitarian object and ornament. Underglazes create a painterly finish that mimic the flat colour of acrylics. Painting these pots on paper (that mimics a canvas) then encourages a back-and-forth conversation between the real and the represented, between “art” and the “artisanal”, between the language of painting and that of ceramics.