Emily Gibbard
Born in Norwich, 1982
Lives and works in Bristol, UK
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Emily's ceramic practice transforms vessels thrown on the potter's wheel into biomorphic sculptural forms that explore body perception, identity and sexuality. While rooted in the traditions of the pottery craft, Emily plays and experiments with thrown forms to create abstract body representation. Inspiration comes from her work in female empowerment, studies into prehistoric sculpture and her personal journey of body discovery.
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Emily is a Collect Open 2024 exhibitor and recipient of Arts Council DYCP funding. She is Founder and Director of Windmill Clay artist-led ceramics studio which provides workspaces, mentoring and classes.
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Galleries
Alveston Fine Arts, Notting Hill, London
Thrown Contemporary Gallery London
New Brewery Arts Cirencester
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Exhibitions
2024
Potfest Glynde Place 10-12 May, Potfest SW 12-14 July
Bristol Botanic Gardens Easter Sculpture Festival
COLLECT OPEN 2024 Somerset House London
CLAY IS MY CANVAS curated by Nick Duxbury, New Brewery Arts Cirencester
2023
CELEBRATING CERAMICS Waterperry Gardens, Oxfordshire
FRINGE ARTS BATH Stories from the City, Stories from the Sea - allegorical sculpture by 3 artists
MY BODY IN MY HANDS SVA Gallery Stroud
Bristol Botanic Gardens Easter Sculpture Festival
DRAWN TOGETHER Serchia Gallery Bristol
2022
THROWN CONTEMPORARY LONDON, Winter Exhibition 22/23
CELEBRATING CERAMICS Waterperry Gardens, Oxfordshire
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"
These are hyperbolically female shapes, upright, acrobatic, and curvy. They are playful and provocative, touching lightly on the long tradition of artistic stunts. They have a compulsiveness perhaps linked to Emily Gibbard’s biography, and to the persona she has constructed. We see a small woman paying homage to that continuum that reaches back to the proto-feminism of Nikki de St Phalle.
Gibbard’s monumental figuration-with-attitude is achieved through the assemblage of thin-walled wheel-thrown vessels (emphatically conventional) to which soft violence is applied while wet and giving. To this naked figure Emily applies sizzling, flat colour, as if to the skin. Her brushstrokes are made with her hand, arm, shoulder, and her whole body. The result is playful, but not playful.
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2021
CRAFTED WINTER New Brewery Arts Cirencester
​BRISTOL CLAY Centrespace Gallery Bristol
2020
CLAY: A Festival of Ceramics Exeter
2019
ALCHEMY Centrespace Gallery Bristol
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Teaching
2021 - present
Windmill Clay Studio Wheel-throwing and hand-building courses
2021
Sculpting with thrown-and-altered forms 2-day workshop
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Education
2019 - 2021
Maze Studios CIC Ceramics Development Centre, Full-time resident
Mentee of Roger Owen, Potter and Programme Lead for Art and Design, City of Bristol College
DYCP Arts Council England funding, focus on developing larger scale sculptural work, Brussels research trip
2002 - 2006
University of Sussex 2:1 BA Hons Social Anthropology & Spanish, Specialisms in gender politics and pre-Columbian art
2004 - 2005
Pontificia Universidad, Chile, B&W photography, Las Culturas prehistóricas
2001 - 2002
Peer Educator, SPW Tanzania, Sexual health and female empowerment