Alison Britton

Alison Britton OBE is a prominent British ceramicist. Working within a palette of earthy tones, her hand-built sculptures continue to challenge the division between fine art and craft. Her sculpted vessels often bridge the gap between abstraction and function for example, with spouts for water jugs being slightly out of kilter or irregular handles organically sprouting out of basins, rendering the objects unusable in their traditional context. This modernist, playful approach was developed during her time at the Royal College of Art in the 1970s. With contemporaries such as Elizabeth Fritsch, Carol McNicoll and Jacqueline Poncelet, a real spirit of experimentation flourished. Heavily inspired by Gordon Baldwin and Hans Coper, the group sought to reconsider the role of practicality within ceramics, to shift the predetermined course of an object. This innovative approach still fuels Britton’s practice today. Leaning into the changeable quality of her material, she takes pleasure in the knots or folds of clay that arise in her forms and adorns these irregularities with decorative gestures, bringing new life and character to functional household objects.