Viv Lee – Handmade stoneware – Cloud Bird – in flight

Viv Lee – Handmade stoneware – Cloud Bird – in flight

Viv Lee is an artist-maker working full time in ceramics with a studio based at Wasps Studios in Glasgow, Scotland. Graduating from The Glasgow School of Art in 2017 with a Bachelor of Fine Arts in sculpture, Viv makes hand-built sculptural ceramics with a focus on vessels. Her motivation for making ceramics comes from an interest in exploring the materiality of clay and the metaphor of body as vessel.

Working with stoneware and terracotta, Viv uses a variety of slow hand-building techniques like press moulding, pinching, and coiling in the process of making. The shapes of her vessels echo the curves and lines of the body or organic forms found in nature, with surfaces glazed in a palette of whites, natural earthy tones or left unglazed to show the body of the clay. Influenced by the ‘Wabi Sabi’ philosophy of imperfect beauty, Viv appreciates the wonderful diversity of forms that emerge from mindful making; the gentle undulations in line and form; the marks that reveal her touch; the pits, pinholes and unexpected glaze irregularities that can arise in firing, accepting them as the beautiful idiosyncrasies that make each vessel unique.

The natural environment provides a rich resource for her works, informing the colours, textures and materials used. Works are finished in earthy tones, often using experimental glazes made with natural materials, slips created from native clay foraged from the landscape or left unglazed to show the body of the clay.