Wendy Campbell-Briggs investigates the idea of collecting and collections, linking historic and contemporary practice. Using the simplicity of ceramic forms to express the fragility of our environment, she creates both one-off sculptural pieces as well as artworks in series. Her aim is to make the work visually engaging whilst communicating an important environmental message about the consequences of global warming and in particular rising sea levels. We now understand this has the potential to cause extinctions in a majority of the world’s valuable ecosystems resulting in catastrophic species loss. As a metaphor for this loss Wendy uses lachrymatories, otherwise known as tear bottles, which were used during the Roman period to collect the tears of mourners.
Wendy creates most of her work using porcelain, and some artworks contain found ‘treasures’ which could be anything – a simple pebble or fossil, or rusty nails used for ship building in times gone by. Researching these objects is a fundamental, inspirational and enjoyable part of the making process.
She says that beach combing provides a rich source of inspiration “At each high tide our shorelines become a deposit of beautiful and intriguing yet disparate objects, both natural and man-made, left for a brief time for us to explore. Their smoothly curving wavy lines are an ever-changing natural work of art”.
