SURREAL FEMININE

A solo exhibition of immersive, large-scale ceramic sculpture by Bristol artist Emily Gibbard, inviting audiences into a dreamlike world where the familiar female form is shifted, stretched and transformed into something unexpected.

Working with the language of surrealism, play and symbolism, Emily creates totemic ceramic sculptures that explore the female experience, body perception, identity and sexuality.

Her practice begins at the potter’s wheel. Traditional thrown vessels are altered, distorted and assembled into bold biomorphic forms — pushing the symmetry and conventions of pottery into something more instinctive, physical and sculptural.

The resulting works feel simultaneously familiar and strange: eyes, mouths, curves and bodily forms appear, disappear and reassemble into figures that can be humorous, provocative, monumental and surreal.

Emily draws inspiration from female empowerment, prehistoric sculpture and her own journey of body discovery, using clay to investigate how we see and experience the body.