Profile

ARTIST STATEMENT

My work comes from a place informed by my practice of looking and seeing – the interplay of colours, the counterbalance of textures, the energy of gestures and the constantly evolving pattern of my surroundings. My inspiration is internal, a conscious analytical series of responses to an ever expanding catalogue of understanding.’ 

Carolyn Genders is an established ceramic artist and printmaker based in the UK, well known for her individual ceramic sculptural vessels and forms and her unique relief prints. The essence of her practice is the relationship of form, line, brushstroke and colour, evident in both her works in clay and on paper.

She creates bold ceramic sculptural vessels and forms handbuilt in white earthenware clay with surfaces of vitreous slips and burnished terra sigillata, and one-off relief prints of abstracted imagery. She works by responding to both her material and to the rhythms of the form as she moves around inscribing marks, incising and scarifying through layers of matt vitreous slips and burnished terra sigillata. Her finished pieces unite the physicality of working with clay and print with the potential of the created surfaces.

There is a symbiotic relationship between ceramic and print: originally the ceramics inspired the prints suggesting motifs and colour palettes, but the vibrancy and translucence of the coloured inks and the immediacy of the printing techniques, so rapid in comparison to the more contemplative handbuilding ceramic techniques, seeped into treatment of the clay surfaces. This continues today: a block of time spent in the print studio is a free flow thought process which brings a fresh perspective to the ceramics. And so the creative circle moves on: ceramics prompting new thoughts in print and vice versa.

BORN

Singapore

STUDY

Brighton Polytechnic: BA Hons Degree in Wood, Metal, Ceramics and Plastics
Goldsmiths College, London: Postgraduate Diploma in Ceramics

1980 Set up studio

Fellow of the Craft Potters Association
Member of Contemporary Applied Arts
Member of the International Academy of Ceramics
Artisan – Homo Faber, Michelangelo Foundation

AWARDS

2016 Selected Maker Award – Silver – Craft & Design Magazine
2002 Major Award Arts Council, UK
2001 Craft Pottery Charitable Trust
2001 South East Arts
1989
David Canter
1994 South East Arts

COMMISSIONS

2024 Waldorf Astoria New York 
2007
‘Raw to Refined’ Bilston Art Gallery, Wolverhampton

COMPETITIONS

2019 14th Westerwald Prize, Germany
2019
Selected Artist, GICB Korea
2015
 59th Premio Faenza, Italy
2014
13th Westerwald Prize, Germany
2014 XXIII International Biennale of Vallauris, France
2012 Honourable Mention,Ceramics Multiplex, Varazdin, Croatia
2011 Honourable Mention, 9th InternationalCeramics Competition, Mono, Japan
2011 Acquisition Award, 7th Internationale Keramik Biennale, Kapfenberg, Austria
2009 Keramik Europas 12. Westerwald Preis.
2002 XV111 Biennale Vallauris
2002 4th Sarreguemines International ceramic competition
2001 Internationale Biennale of Ceramic Art, Brussels
1985 Cevider, Valencia, Spain
1984 Cevider, Valencia, Spain
1982 Concorso Internationale, Faenza, Italy

AUTHOR

Pattern, Colour & Form (A&C Black) 2009
Sources of Inspiration (A&C Black) 2001

COLLECTIONS
Gladstone Museum, Stoke on Trent
Valencia Museum, Spain
Keramiekcentrum Tiendschuur, Tegelen, The Netherlands
Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge
British Academy Art Collection, London 
Museum of Modern Ceramic Art, Gifu, Japan
Varazdin Museum, Croatia
Brighton & Hove Museum, Craft Collection, Sussex
Adolf Egner Collection, Cologne Museum
Robert Pinchen Collection, Leeds Museum
Fine Arts Society, Glasgow
AUCTIONS

2021, 2022, 2023 Adam Partridge Auctioneers, Studio Ceramics
2019
Fielding’s Contemporary Ceramics
1992 Sothebys, Garden Sale
1992 Bonhams, Action Aid
1990 Christies, Handful of Clay
1989 Phillips, Contemporary Craft, Oxford

LECTURES/WORKSHOPS

2022 Keramiekcentrum Tegelen, The Netherlands
2022 Potters Day, West Forest Potters, UK
2019 Gallery Talk, Contemporary Ceramics, London
2018 Barbabos Potters, workshop
2017 Guest Speaker, Scottish Potters
2013 Ceramic Arts Association of Israel, annual winter workshop, Bezalel Academy of Art & Design, Benyamini Contemporary Arts Centre
2013 Masterclass Greenwood Potters, South Carolina USA
2013 University of South Carolina – visiting artist