PRESS RELEASE
LUCINDA MUDGE | Does Anybody Know What's Going On?
Jun 14 – Jul 13, 2024
LUCINDA MUDGE | DOES ANYBODY KNOW WHAT'S GOING ON?
14 June - 13 July
VIEW PORTFOLIO | REQUEST PRICELIST | +44 (0) 20 7590 9991
Everard Read London presents an exhibition of new ceramic vases and paintings by contemporary South African artist, Lucinda Mudge, “best known for her large, patterned vases in vivid colours, scrawled with amusing, pithy text.”*
“I have been making ceramics for over a decade, relentlessly pursuing my practice despite the country’s battles with dwindling and irregular electricity supply,” says South African artist, Lucinda Mudge. 2023 was a particularly challenging year and power outages meant she was able to fire her kiln only a handful of times. This led the artist to pursue painting – a medium in which she has always felt at home. At the same time Mudge’s husband and brother fashioned a new hybrid solar kiln system. “This new body of work was fired in this way – a major breakthrough for me,” notes the artist. With these light tranquil paintings and heavy gold ceramic vases my ambition for this exhibition is to bring a sense of balance.
The pot as decorative storyboard was popularised by the ancient Greeks, notes writer, Victoria Woodcock.** Mudge’s pictorial pottery draws inspiration from a wide variety of references – from pop culture and cartoon strips, to fabric and textile designs, Art Deco and poetry – resulting in whimsical collisions of the popular and refined, the beautiful and sometimes the violent, unsurprisingly in a country, notorious for using dark humour as a coping mechanism.
Captivating the eye with their luxuriant glazes and intricate detail, this collection of vases encompasses all of life – images unfolding with a filmic quality, revealing the artist’s witty, outrageous and provocative musings with their contradictions, riddles and yearnings.
Mudge’s paintings are infused with a kindred vitality and spirit as her vases. Foliage, feathers, birds, abstract shapes and symbols cascade down her canvases or swirl with the dizzying energy of an eddy. “Painting and ceramics have formed a neat duo in my studio,“ says Mudge. “This exhibition was made by focusing my time equally on both mediums.”
* Jo Buitendach, A cackling cauldron of female creativity, Financial Mail, BusinessLive, March 2023
** Victoria Woodcock, The Potters Tale, Financial Times, November 2023
