'Jhansi Juna', stoneware and porcelain sculptures by Alice Walton

This pair of unusual and complementary sculptures were made in response to an application for a competition by contemporary ceramic artist Alice Walton, which she later won. The Worshipful Company of Tin Plate Workers alias Wire Workers requested an interesting exploration to work with tin metal, which allowed Walton to experiment outside her usual materials of coloured porcelain and press-moulded white stoneware.

In the resulting work, Walton created her own particles of tin oxide aggregate to add variation over the clay’s surface. She then contrasted this with pin-prick textured detail at the top, indented using a needle. Their urban bollard-like form and vivid blue colour ultimately juxtaposes with this tactile organic textured surface, demonstrating how Walton lets the materials guide her experimentation. A fine example of her most recent work, Jhansi Juna is particularly imbued with an other-worldly quality, transporting the viewer into a curiously abstract landscape and providing an exciting contrast to our historic porcelain collections.

Dimensions: 13 x 13 x 44 and 13 x 13 x 26 cm.